


Fortuna's Fool

by kiapurity



Series: FsF [2]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Carina swears as usual, Chapter two went so much faster than chapter one, F/M, More Carina swearing, Sam the Researcher, Sappy Nerokiri moments are very important, When you've been fighting with a chapter so long you don't know what sleep is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2020-04-24 12:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19173502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiapurity/pseuds/kiapurity
Summary: Events after DMC5 with flashbacks to the events we briefly see in DMC4SE only with Vergil telling Dante all about Nero's mother. Family ties are so complicated, aren't they?





	1. Bittersweet Memories

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Title inspired by “Fortune’s Fool” by Angela Wells

A rare moment of peace drifted over the depths of hell for the twins after fending off varying demons in-between sparring sessions and arguing over who was keeping the current score count. They had their backs to each other’s, taking a brief nap with the older one having a near death grip on his katana. He twitched a little in his sleep, murmuring something under his breath.

“Hm?” The younger twin stirred slightly. “What was that?”

“...forgive me for leaving you alone for so long.”

Dante had a funny look on his face. “It’s fine?”

“I should’ve listened to you and taken you out of Fortuna like you asked me to…”

Oh. So that’s what he meant. Must be Nero’s mother he was talking about. Dante gently poked Vergil’s elbow with his own. “Wake up.”

Vergil slightly stirred before remembering that he was still in hell with his brother. Whether this was a good idea at the time or not, he couldn’t say. He shook his head to clear his thoughts but the thoughts were persistently stuck on her pale face framed by long loose black curls and red lips set in a pout.

No, the last time he saw her, it wasn’t a pout, but an angry scowl as she had protested against him leaving her behind in Fortuna. She didn’t want to be stuck in the city as she felt like she was suffocating and there was that unpleasant matter with her guardian. She only finally gave in after he promised that he would be back for her.

A broken promise because he had gotten wind of a certain tower which led to a series of events leading up to this point with him trying to atone for the last decades of mistakes. Only if he had either chosen to stay with her or take her with him, would everything have changed if he chose differently?

“What?”

“You were talking in your sleep. Nero’s mom? Hell, do you even know her name?”

Vergil visibly bristled at Dante’s casual remark before trying to calm himself and Dante only raised an eyebrow at that.

“I guess you do.”

“It is a private matter. She only gave me a name for me to call her. She went by a more formal name as she was the heir to a shipping company.”

Dante made a choking sound. “Really. Huh. That makes Nero’s comment all the more troubling then.”

The older froze and gave the younger a long hard stare. Dante returned the stare with a sigh and a shrug.

“Nero said he was left at an orphanage.”

“Carina wouldn’t! She could never…” He staggered, dropping to his knees. “Is there a possible reason for her to have done so. No. She can’t be dead?”

He quickly got back to his feet and started marching off in a random direction, jaw set with determination as Dante quickly dashed after.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m returning. I cannot leave things as they are right now if what you told me is correct, Dante.”

He had never seen his twin look so rattled like this. Dante felt like it was partially his fault for not having pressed Nero for more detail about his background. It was Kyrie who had confronted Dante just after he gave Nero the neon Devil May Cry sign.

\--

“I wanted to talk to you in private, if that’s okay.” 

Dante shrugged at Kyrie as the two walked off to the side out of Nero’s earshot while Nero was trying to figure out what to do about the sign.

“So, what’s up?”

“Look, are you related to Nero in some way?” Kyrie was wringing her hands. “I mean, after losing Credo… Nero feels a little more alone. And I thought since you two looked similar.”

“Aw man. I didn’t want to have to deal with that. Look, I can’t really explain the connection because I don’t want to deal with my own problems.”

Like the fact that he was pretty sure that his dumbass twin had somehow managed to father a child and that Dante had probably killed the said dumbass twin on Mallet Island. He wasn’t sure if that actually happened but at the same time he was still dealing with the grief from the fallout with Temen Ni Gru.

Maybe this wasn’t just fair of him to not want to take Nero aside and declare himself the uncle and spoil his new favorite nephew who would probably be more interested in stabbing Dante with another sword. Again. The kid really did take after his father after all.

It was just that he had too much crap to deal with and he was still nowhere close to resolving that mixed bag of depression. Still, he was surprised that Nero hadn’t picked up the whole spiel of “The sword belonged to my brother, so I’d like to keep it in the family. By the way, you can have the sword.”

“Then explain it.” Kyrie crossed her arms.

Shit.

“Alright, look. Yes, I’m his uncle and I already told him that.”

“And what was so hard about that?”

Oh my god, was Kyrie really using the mom voice? Dante was feeling a little cowed at the moment but waved it off. He would let this go since they were still dealing with Credo’s absence.

“You have no idea. I’ll keep in touch if you guys need anything, okay?”

“Thank you for telling me.” Kyrie smiled. “You know, you’re always welcome for meal times!”

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that offer someday.”

\--

“So, bro. Mind telling me about how you met Carina while we’re on this march?”

“I suppose I do need practice when I have to tell Nero all about his mother. Very well.”

Damn, that whole splitting himself in half deal seemed to have improved Vergil’s personality considerably. Or was that mostly Nero getting irritated with their sibling rivalry and beating their assess for it? Dante decided that it was definitely both.

\--

Fascinating that there would be a city built around the legend of Sparda. It was a surprise that Mundus’ army hadn’t come after the city yet but at the same time, it wasn’t exactly easy to find in the first place.

Fortuna was a rather strange place, he thought to himself as he walked past a half completed statue. He didn’t know what to make of the statue and instead, drew his hood closer to his face, feeling embarrassed. What would the people of this city think of him, a son of Sparda?

It was to his benefit that he kept himself shrouded so they wouldn’t see the tell-tale signs of his bloodline. Then again, judging by the statue earlier, he wasn’t sure if they knew about Sparda’s human form. From what little he could remember of his father, he certainly was an imposing figure with equally imposing volume of hair.

Thankfully, he and his twin hadn’t inherited that volume, but they did inherit other things. He wasn’t sure if he had inherited all of his powers, only distinctly recalling that his devil trigger was brought on when he was thirteen, being chased by Mundus’ army back then and nearly dying in the process.

There was something here, a bunch of devils carouseling in the street. The cloak flew off, Yamato unsheathed. In an instant, the devils were quickly vanished as he grabbed the cloak out of the air, drawing it back onto himself. Then staggered a bit, realization dawning on him that he hadn’t had a meal in some time.

Damn this human half, needing food and sleep. If he could, he would gladly go without both and he had tried to push his body as much as he could but there were times when his body would protest loudly. It seemed today was that day as he made his way through a crowd, attracting the eye of a woman who hadn’t expected her life to take an abrupt left turn.

“The hell--” she whispered under her breath.

She whirled around, abandoning her last errand for the day. She could not ignore an obvious person in distress even if this was a stranger. She tried to follow him as much as she could, pushing her way through the crowd. She could see him weave in and out of the crowd, still trying to match his pace.

Ah.

Did she lose him…? The streets had cleared but she didn’t see him anywhere to be found. However, she did feel a distinct looming presence behind her back as he leaned over, whispering in her ear.

“Why would you follow me, human? What a foolish decision.”

Her amber eyes narrowed, picking up on the subtle hint that he meant it as an insult. She tried to push away the obvious lustful feelings she had from him being so close and wondered what the hell was wrong with her.

“You have missed too many meals.”

“And you would know this ho--” He suddenly slumped over, nearly taking her down with him. “Damn.”

The white veil slid off her head, revealing her long curly black hair. She quietly cursed, trying to support the man’s weight under her shoulder. She grabbed the veil, shoving it in a pocket.

“At least we’re not too far from my house.”

A little while later, she wasn’t sure how she managed it but she had gotten the very stubborn man in the cottage. The housekeeper had started asking questions but was quickly shushed with a request for a quick hot meal. Trying to get him to remove his cloak was providing to be one hell of a challenge.

“Even if you look deformed, I would think it’d be good manners for you to take that dusty thing off!”

He scowled at the remark. “My appearance is not the issue here. I simply do not feel comfortable with showing my face.”

“Bite me.”

He turned scarlet and nearly choked in surprise staring at the woman before him, who was obviously not having any more of his grief. Finally, he knew he wasn’t going to win this battle and would have to deal with the fallout.

However, he was unprepared for the blank look on the woman’s face as she sighed, taking the cloak from him. Vergil was confused as to the lack of surprise over his unusual white hair. What kind of woman was he even dealing with?

The kind who was trying not to faint in the hallway. She had not expected the complete stranger to be so attractive. Thinking about his appearance paired with that sexy voice in her ear, she felt a little dizzy and weak at her knees. Finally, she slapped some sense into herself before taking the cloak to be laundered. That thing was probably caked in centuries of dirt judging by its appearance.

Dare he think it? The hot meal finally started making him feel a little human again. That word left such a bitter taste on his tongue. Soon as he had access to the city library, he could get whatever information he needed and leave immediately. Perhaps, he should consider being a little nicer to his rescuer.

No. Past experience had taught him that anyone who had tried to help him usually died horribly or were the monsters themselves, wanting something out of it. He was a little wary to trust this woman despite however he might have any feelings about her.

Feelings? No, he refused to consider such a thing, too human. He swallowed hard, trying to push that thought aside. Besides, they had just met and exchanged a few words and not even their names either. Foolish.

He still felt a little dizzy even after his stomach was full. His body was aching for some much needed sleep and he didn’t want to pass out at the dining table. She hadn’t come back yet and he left the table, trying to sense her out in this large house. He picked up a bare hint of her fragrance, rose mixed with vanilla?

Finally, he found the woman fighting with trying to launder the cloak. Her hair tied back in a bun, sleeves rolled up and the front of her dress soaked. The cloak seemed to be equally stubborn as its owner who was now staring at her, puzzled.

“You don’t really need to go out of your way for that.”

“I have to be a good host, can’t besmirch my uncle’s good name.”

“Speaking of which, I’m afraid that I’ve been terribly rude.” The woman snorted at Vergil’s remark. “Excuse me, my name is Vergil. And yours?”

She put down the cloak for the moment, resting her chin on her fist. “Let’s see. I’ve got a difficult name. I’ll give you something easy to remember me by. I’m sure you will hear people call me different names the longer you stay here.”

“I see.”

“Ah! I’ve got it. You may call me, Carina.”

“Carina. Would I trouble you for a spare bed to sleep in?”

“It’s fine, it’s my duty as the host.” She looked at the damp cloak and sighed. “I’ll deal with that later if you don’t mind.”

After being shown a spare bedroom for his stay, he was left in the dark with his thoughts and the lingering perfume. He was disturbed by how she was willing to show kindness to a stranger in spite of him trying to scare her away. Vergil found it touching but at the same time concerned about her seeming naive nature.

Then again, she did tell him to bite her. Obviously, not as naive as he thought if she could snap back like that. The bed was calling his name and he had no choice but to give up the fight.

\--

“Jeez.You fell for her that hard, bro?”

“I didn’t know it at the time. I was trying to push away anything remotely resembling human feelings. Too many times I have seen people die trying to help me or they betray me for promises of false riches.”

Dante shook his head and said. “No wonder why you resented me so much. I didn’t even have to deal with that crap. Our childhood really died that day, didn’t it?”

“It did. The more time I spent with Carina, it was like I could have a normal life with her if I wanted to…”

\--

That morning, Vergil woke up disoriented, barely remembering to smooth his hair back in its elegant coif. While his body felt refreshed from that much needed sleep, the dreams had left him feeling a little too aware of something he had not paid heed to. Hello, morning wood.

There was a knock at the door and he called out, “Come in. I’m dressed.”

Carina opened the door, smiling. “Good morning! Is there anything you need for today?”

“Ah, you have a library in this city, correct?”

“Certainly! I can take you there because I have several hours of volunteering there today. Then after that, I have to finish the errands that I was running for the orphanage yesterday.”

He pulled his blue coat off the chair, sliding it on his body effortlessly while Carina watched with interest considering the pressing issue he was trying so hard to ignore. Then she cleared her throat awkwardly after catching herself staring a little too long. FInally, he remembered his hair and ran his left hand through it, slicking it back in the usual style.

“You keep yourself very busy, Carina.”

“Someone’s got to when you’re basically a prisoner.” She scoffed. “I can’t stay cooped up in this house constantly. My uncle means well but I do think I can take care of myself.”

“And you invited a strange man in your house?”

“There’s nothing strange about you. Just someone who needs a break from life kicking them around.”

Ouch. She had no idea how true that was, but did she? He couldn’t tell as he followed her out of the cottage, his face largely unreadable.

“Prisoner?”

“Just some silly notion he’s got. Thinks I should be treated like a princess and has me listed in his will as the ‘heiress’ to his shipping company! Everyone bow before Aikaterine, her royal majesty of … some shipping company. I used to have a pretty normal childhood before I started developing my assets.”

Vergil actually blushed as Carina gestured to her body in a scandalous manner. She did have certainly nice curves but he was trying so damn hard to avert his eyes. The dreams from last night was taunting him again.

“And because I became so womanly, I had to be locked up in the house and receive my remaining education from tutors. Last year, I had to fight to be allowed this freedom so I can do charity because if he wants to marry me off to some poor sap, I have to have the proper qualifications for a wife.”

“You’re either brave or very foolish.”

“I have to take what I can get.”

She turned into an alley, stopping for a moment, trying to take a deep breath. Why was she telling everything to this man? It wasn’t like he could do anything to fix her situation as a frustrated seventeen year old being bartered for power. She had heard rumblings amongst the visiting servants that her uncle was looking into marrying her off to someone high up in the church for more prestige.

Her childhood ruined all because her uncle saw her as a perfect tool, rather than the precious niece from his late sister to protect.

She was surprised when he wrapped his arms around her, his voice in her ear once again. He hadn’t expected to do this himself either, but it felt right to him. Just a small act of kindness to repay for hers.

“I’m sorry, Carina.”

She sighed, letting herself sink into his warmth. It felt so right to be held by this man and she didn’t understand why, but just let it be.

They finally reached their destination, speaking nothing more about that small shared intimate moment. Carina wandered off to do her volunteer work while Vergil pursed the shelves, taking the books to a table.

Nothing much about Sparda! He slammed a fourth book in disgust, returning it to the pile on the table. It was more of the same that he had read in the other books. Was there some section that he had overlooked?

There was a loud crash and an equally loud, “MOTHER FUCKER” echoing down the halls, snapping Vergil out of his thoughts. He cautiously looked out of the room, only to see Carina had fallen down, the book truck tipped over with a pile of books sprawled around her.

“...that was you?”

“Oh, shit.” She muttered. “I’m fine, Vergil. Cart was heavier than I expected.”

“I had not known your mouth to be capable of such language.” He remarked dryly as she tilted her head in response.

“Yeah? I’m full of surprises, Vergil.”

“So I’m discovering.” He tried to ward off another round of furious blushing. “Carina, I am having some difficulty with my research regarding Sparda.”

She glanced at the pile of discarded books on the table and back at the shelves with a groan, distressing him. That was another thing she would have to clean up as she began putting the books back to Vergil’s protest in which he stood up and began helping her.

“Hey, this is my job.”

“I’m the one who pulled these out in the first place. You didn’t sound happy when I asked you about Sparda.”

“I don’t think he ever really existed in the first place.”

That was like a gut punch to Vergil as he stared at her, jaw slightly open. He slammed his jaw shut, hissing through clenched teeth. His cold blue eyes had slitted as if he was pinning her to the wall.

“And what makes you believe that?”

“It’s been, what, two thousand years?” Carina pointedly ignored his bristling behavior. “Why would my feelings on this matter upset you?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. She did have a point there and he was not sure how she would react to this information in the first place.

“He was definitely real. Had a wife and twin sons.”

“That’s not information you would even have gotten from the library here.”

“That’s because he’s my father.”

Carina went quiet, trying to digest this thought. No, he had to be joking, right? Sparda was a demon, right? This man before him was just an irritated looking human although, she had to admit the white hair was certainly not common.

“Pardon me? Okay, hold on, Vergil. If you’re going to look at me like that, you might as well rip my panties off.”

That made him blush furiously as he attempted to stammer out a sentence, failing in the process.

\--

“She actually SAID THAT?”

“I’m not going to tell Nero that part.” Vergil scowled. “Lest he think poorly of her. But she was uh, interesting.”

“I am more than certain she jumped you first.” Dante was trying not to die from laughing but judging from Vergil’s expression, he might end up dying anyway.

\--

“Seriously. I’m trying to wrap my head around this information. I mean, what artistic renderings we have of Sparda, they’re always of his demon form… uh, looking very serene?”

“Wait, I could have just wandered around this city without my cloak and no one would have noticed?”

“What. And here, I couldn’t get the cloak clean enough for you...”

Carina had quit trying to wash the cloak last night, only managing to get it to look halfway decent in the process before deciding that sleep was more important. She didn’t know if he would show up, hissing at her and stealing his “security blanket” back. That seemed to have made the point of trying to wash the cloak as a form of good deed … useless.

“Apologies. From what I remember of him, he constantly used his human form. My best memory is the painting our family posed for…” Vergil scowled. “My twin didn’t like standing still so that was a trial.”

“...I believe you.” Carina waved her hands. “The more restricted materials about Sparda would be in the Order. And you’d have to be pretty high up for that, I guess.”

So, he would have to make a personal visit to the church officials about that. See how well they would react to his existence. This would have to be considered carefully as to not cause a rather unreasonable riot and attract Mundus’ attention. He wondered why Mundus hadn’t laid waste to the island at this point.

“Shoot. It’s time for my thing at the orphanage! Will you be okay here? I mean, do you need a map of the city or something?”

“I believe I can find my way. Thank you for your assistance.”

The conversation ended abruptly with her swift exit, leaving Vergil with the books and thoughts to himself. Visiting the Order was definitely a priority on his list if he wanted to get access to information about his father. He glanced at a book that he hadn’t returned to the shelf yet and made a curious sound in his throat.

The book laid open on a chapter discussing about a mysterious tower known as one Temen-Ni-Gru. Huh, this looked interesting as he pored over the chapter, his eyebrows furrowing. Another possible lead that he would have to look into once he was finished with this city.

The Church would have to wait another day, he thought to himself as he realized that he had lost track of time at the library. Perhaps, he should escort Carina home from the orphanage but he wasn’t sure why he had an urgent need for her. It seemed that her presence was what was bringing his human side out at unexpected times.

He wanted to sprout poetry, shower her with flowers, and serenade her with a violin. At present, he only had one thing out of three items on his list; Complete Works of William Blake memorized. 

“I’m being ridiculous. A miserable, ridiculous fool smitten by a woman. I have to get out of this city.”

Vergil stopped talking to himself once he realized he stopped in front of the orphanage building. Should have been paying more attention to his surroundings. Love did make people stupid. Perhaps, he should get that brain cell back from his twin brother if he ever felt up to dealing with Dante’s nonsense.

There were loud children exclaiming for someone named “Cat?” to stay and keep playing with them. Carina waved to them through the door, apologizing but time was fading quickly and that she would be back tomorrow with more stories to tell. She turned around, beaming upon seeing Vergil waiting outside for her.

“I thought you would have left by now!” Carina said, still smiling brightly. “So, staying a little longer?”

“It looks that way. Still have things to do in this city.” Vergil sighed. “I haven’t even visited the church yet.”

“That would be something to see with those crusty people learning about who you are!”

“Regarding our earlier conversation about my father. I take it that you aren’t religious?”

“Not in the slightest. I obviously don’t fit in with this city despite my best efforts.” Carina sighed, crossing her arms in an attempt to warm herself up.

Vergil had barely noticed the chill in the air, slipping his coat off his body. He draped it on her shoulders, rubbing them to warm her up a little bit. She felt as though she was uncomfortably warm under her collar from his closeness and the body heat lingering on the coat.

“So, what would you do if you weren’t in this city?”

“I really don’t know. But it would be something of my free will to choose.” She smiled, enjoying the warmth. “I’d like to see a bit of the world then maybe I can decide. What would you want to do?”

The question left him at a loss for words. What would he do if he wasn’t so desperate for power? There was a secondary need that was gnawing away at him, the need to be loved and protected. A thought gently poked at him, he could give up the desire for power and exchange it for a peaceful life. A chance for him to find out what he could choose with free will rather than having the trauma choose for him.

“I think I would like to be with you.”

\--

“So, that’s when it happened?”

Vergil pinched the bridge of his nose. “That was later.”

“Oh, so, that was just once?” Dante barely survived the glower. “Holy shit, twice?”

“I refuse to answer that.”

\--

What a strange feeling, going from being lost in the darkness of protecting himself from other people only to find himself losing himself yet again, but this time in the light of Carina’s warmth. It was inevitable that they would become intimate with the time they spent in each other’s company. One night did manage to haunt him, that night when she requested to see his devil form. He had obligated her and she said she would still love him no matter what he looked like in either form.

Such pure love he never thought he could attain.

A rude voice in his head kept reminding him that the love was a fragile thing, shouldn’t he desire power to protect Carina? Even in the back of his head, he was aware that Mundus still possessed a threat… what would he do if he learned of her existence? Would Carina suffer the same fate as his mother?

No, he would not allow that to happen as long as he drew breath. No more time to be wasted spending lazy afternoons in bed with her, whispering poetry in her ear. Hard decisions had to be made and he knew he couldn’t make them lightly. Would she forgive him for asking her to wait for his return?

Of course, what a foolish prospect.

“I thought you wanted to stay.” Carina’s face was a mixture of confusion and pain. “Why?”

They were sitting at the dining table, sharing what seemed to be their last meal together. She left her soup untouched, her clenched fists in her lap. It was clear to Vergil that she was having trouble keeping her composure.

“Couldn’t you take me with you? You know I don’t belong in Fortuna and … it’s not a safe place for me anymore.”

“It’s still safer than the outside world.”

“That’s bullshit. What kind of excuse is that?”

“When I was but a child, my house was attacked while I was outside playing by myself. My mother was killed in the attack and I thought my twin brother had been lost too. It was by a powerful devil named Mundus who was angry at my father. It is why I came to Fortuna to find out more about my father and become strong enough to stop Mundus for once and all.”

“I have a shotgun.”

Vergil stared at the shotgun leaning against the wall, how was that he just now noticed its existence? Why would she have a such a tasteless thing when a sword would just do the job perfectly fine.

“Carina, I do not think a shotgun would stop Mundus.”

“So what? Just take me with you!”

She slammed her hands on the table, standing up almost looming over Vergil who was still sitting. Her angry amber eyes bored into his cold blue eyes, never breaking contact. He flinched after few minutes.

“How about after a year if I get strong enough and Mundus is dead, I’ll come back for you. Would that make you happy?”

Carina’s lips trembled with seething rage. Sure, that sounded like a decent compromise but there was still that issue of her uncle trying to sell her off. But of course, she would be considered “damaged goods” at that point and thusly useless. What would happen to her if her uncle discovered this matter?

“If you don’t come back after a year, I will find you and kick your butt.” She snapped, an angry finger jabbing in the air. “I… you are such an idiot!”

She bolted from the room in tears and Vergil buried his face in his hands. He didn’t mean to hurt her so horribly like that, but maybe with time…

He rose from the table and made his way to the front door. He couldn’t comfort her, it would only make the parting that much painful. Better to let the wound bleed out this way. He took the cloak from the coat hanger and put it on before departing the cottage.

But not before he finally visited the Order as was his purpose that he had long since put off. The building was quiet at night and the newly appointed pope seemed surprised at Vergil’s presence in his room.

“May I help you…?”

“I’m not here to kill you.” Vergil sneered, Yamato still at his side. “I’m here to step into Sparda’s footsteps. You all worship a demon like a god, but consider who you will worship.”

Sanctus seemed a little frightened at this sudden commanding presence. Who was this arrogant youth before him?

“What--”

“The god, or the son who surpassed him.”

And then he was gone like that after Sanctus blinked, trying to process that strange meeting. So, Sparda had a child, then?

\--

“Holy shit, you must have really freaked out that geezer.” Dante was nearly wheezing with laughter. “Nero pretty much finished him off.”

“You will have to explain to me about that at some point.”

“Of course, bro. You okay now after telling me about Carina?”

“I’m not certain.” He rubbed his face. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she cursed me with her dying breath for not being for her and Nero.”

“At least you’re making up for it by telling the kid all about his mom, yeah?”

“That is the intent, yes.”

He could only wonder what might have been if he chose differently. Would it have been before he left Fortuna or when he was at Temen Ni Gru. A brief thought sent shivers up his spine of Carina angrily marching to the tower with a baby in tow and kicking his butt for it. That would have been a much better fate than falling into Hell and becoming Mundus’ slave. He would have rather had the anger of a woman who he loved because that way he would still be able to embrace her.

\--

Nero was in the garage, murmuring to himself as he was checking on Red Queen’s maintenance when he suddenly felt something rather ominous at the half-opened garage door.

“Oh no, not again.”

He hit the button on the garage door opener, half expecting a repeat of the last time someone was at the garage door and he lost an arm. Fortunately, he was greeted by the sight of his idiot uncle and the equally idiot father who managed to look awkward. Unfortunately, it was his father who had ripped his arm off in the first place.

“What the @#$!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The conversation Vergil has with Sanctus takes place in one of the DMC4 novels -- that needed to be tossed in this fic :p_


	2. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seriously sappy Nerokiri moments, hopefully. Nico and Kyrie have quality girl bonding time with researching and kicking ass. Also, Nero has to deal with his idiot relatives again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the full story that Kyrie reads to the boys, check out "The Maiden and the Dragon!"

“...the proof of their bond. The end.” Kyrie closed the well loved book, looking up at the boys who were looking very bored.

“Aw! That’s too mushy! I was expecting some real fighting like, what with the dragon in the title!” Julio pouted. “He sounds like he would be really good at sword fighting.”

“I kinda liked it but…” Kyle said from the top bunk bed. “It just didn’t feel like it had action.”

“Oh, boys. You’re missing the point here. It’s meant to show how kindness towards those who are different from you can go a long way. Magical things do really happen!” Kyrie shook her head, still smiling. “Just look at me and Nero.”

Speaking of magical things, Kyrie still couldn’t believe Nero managed to grow his arm back. That day, she was in the kitchen, doing the dishes when the duo returned home from that tree incident. He was so excited that he damn near jumped out of the van before Nico had a chance to park in the garage. The phone call was something of an understatement when Kyrie finally saw the arm, her mouth open in shock.

There were a lot of questions regarding the arm growing back and he admitted that the stress of possibly losing his family due to some idiotic sibling rivalry had given him a complete control over his devil trigger. Still remembering the devil bringer, she asked him if he wouldn’t mind showing off the new form. He was more than happy to do so and instead of the devil bringer glowing golden with happiness, it was his entire body. Not to mention the extra arms which he proudly proclaimed that he had more arms to hug Kyrie with.

What a sweetheart dork.

Nico had yelled at them to get a room once she emerged from the garage. Kyrie replied with “Take the boys out for some ice cream, please?” In that moment Nico realized what Kyrie meant, she choked on her cigarette.

“You know, she used to read me that story all the time.” Nero was leaning on the door frame. “I just liked hearing her talk and I would pretend those people were my parents. Not that I didn’t love my adopted parents, but it’s just a thing when you wonder what they were like.”

“Okay, then…” there was a sleepy yawn.

“Good night, boys!” Kyrie turned the light off as Nero moved aside to let her through.

She stopped by the bookcase to return the well loved book to its rightful place. Something about the book had been bothering her ever since she started this quest. It was as if it was a story being told by the mother to her child. Could it be…?

Perhaps, she would look into it in the morning as the bed was calling her. It was another long day of doing household errands in-between newspaper archives search at the local library. Nothing but dead-ends with that but she supposed that it narrowed her search down considerably.

It sounded as if the mother simply hadn’t existed from all the record attempts or was from out of the city? She hadn’t figured that part out either but she thought it was clear the mother had no social presence. Kyrie was beginning to feel a little discouraged with her search, wanting Nero to at least feel a little less lonely what with his male relatives chilling out in Hell.

She shook her head. There was another reason but she wasn’t ready to reveal the news yet, still unsure about her instincts. At least there was a possible lead with the orphanage the other day when she came over to visit the staff to inquire about Nero’s adoption. That too was a dead end until as she was leaving and a framed color picture caught her eye. A beautiful dark haired woman was surrounded by children while reading a story to them.

What was especially interesting was that something about her felt like she could be the mother Kyrie was searching for. Kyrie had exclaimed with surprise, asking the immediate staff that walked past about the woman in the picture. They said that they didn’t have her name, just a nickname she gave the children to use because her amber eyes reminded them of a cat. Kyrie asked if there were any staff back then who knew more details but sadly, the oldest one had retired last year and moved away from Fortuna.

Which left Kyrie at a loss for words, still mulling over the book. The author’s name was Rina Fortune and there was an instant facepalm on Kyrie’s part. Of course, that was a pseudonym! The pieces were so close to assembling but she felt like she needed just the right piece and everything would fall in place as if it were.

“You’re spacing out, Kyrie.”

“Ah! It is late… I’m sorry. I’m so tired.”

They silently got ready for bed in the master bedroom with Kyrie finally putting her head on the pillow, staring at the ceiling.

“Nero, are you doing okay?” Her soft voice caught his attention. “I mean, about your family.”

“It’s just still some time adjusting, I guess. The idea that I’ve been hanging out with my father’s human half all this time and not knowing.”

Kyrie hadn’t met either V or Vergil but she gathered the gist from what Nero and Nico told her. Nero was still torn up about the discovery, trying to shrug it off. But she could see the pain in his eyes. 

It was a complicated set of feelings for him, having spent a lot of time with the human half, even having the feeling that he could easily trust V. Was it because of their shared blood that both of them failed to realize at the time? Then there was the matter of Nero fighting Urizen who promised to show the weak human death and destruction.

Did his father really still think of him in that way, just a weak human? No, the newfound control over his devil trigger had thrown both his father and uncle for a loop, he reminded himself. Things had changed, but it still hurt thinking back on the past events.

“He did give me his treasured childhood book that he was always reading all the time. I’m still mad that Dante didn’t think to tell me earlier.”

“I thought he did…?”

“Nope, practically last minute.”

Either Nero was unable to use the Sparda Family Brain Cell™ or Dante had been especially a dumbass about the explanation. Kyrie decided it was both and she would give Dante a serious stern talking to later. She was so postive that they wouldn’t be stupid enough to stay in Hell just to hide from angry people.

She just hoped she wouldn’t be proven wrong. She rolled over, snuggling into Nero’s side, trying to comfort him. Kyrie could tell when he was trying to steel himself and often wished he would be okay about venting his feelings a little more. Nero absently accepted Kyrie’s nuzzling and thanked his lucky stars that he was lucky to have her.

She always backed him up even when they were children what with the bullies going after him for his weird looks and suggesting that his mother was a whore. Credo would yell at both of them for getting into fights, having to deal with the clean-up. Out of two of them, it was Kyrie who was the vicious fighter. No one was allowed to hurt Nero’s feelings with her around and he never ever felt emasculated by it. Always grateful Kyrie was there for him when he needed her.

“I guess I just wanted to ask him about everything but… I can’t.”

“They won’t stay gone, Nero.”

“I don’t know, Kyrie. I mean, he’s been gone for most of my life. It’s just too much, having him pop back in then … gone again.”

Nero was not going to mention the awkward part that it was Vergil in the garage who had ripped his arm off lest Kyrie flip out and rip open Hell herself. If Father’s Day came around and his father was magically present, he was going to get Vergil a mug that said “dad” on it not bothering to even add “best” or “worst”. Dante was definitely up for “worst uncle ever” mug if one existed.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Kyrie.”

\--

In the morning, Kyrie was in the kitchen making pancakes for everyone. A fresh day with possible leads to search and maybe borrow a book from the library. She dumped a fresh stack of pancakes on a plate and asked Julio to carry it to the table. She could hear people immediately attack the food, laughing to herself. Of course there would be plenty of leftovers, she would see to that.

Nero announced that he would be going out on errands, apologizing to Kyrie because he knew Kyrie was working on a project. Kyrie waved it off, saying errands were urgent compared to her research project. He just didn’t know the research project was specifically about his mother and she wasn’t sure how Nero would handle the information just yet. For now, Kyrie was content to hang wet laundry in the backyard with the boys playing outside.

Nico was reading through some Order documents while lying on a beach chair. She was mulling over some weapon ideas, hoping to get inspiration from reading.

“How’s the research coming along?”

“Still nothing since the orphanage picture. All I can tell is that she wasn’t a public persona. Then you know, my favorite book. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I think Nero’s mom might have been the writer.”

“Really?”

“Even though the illustrations are black and white, something about the story feels personal. Maybe I’ve been looking at this all wrong. I’ve had the truth with me all this time and I just didn’t realize it!”

“Hang on, are you saying the fairy tale is real?” Nico stopped reading the documents. “Then again, we’ve seen some pretty weird things.”

“The orphanage part in the story… that’s definitely right! That matches up with the picture.” Kyrie exclaimed with excitement burning in her eyes.

How had she not realized it sooner? This was the best news she had all day!

“Isn’t the prince a ‘dragon’?”

“I’m going to assume that’s a creative thing. Oh, there had to be a lot that got changed. Maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes too high.”

Then she wondered about the local urban legends. Should have thought to check for books on those because people loved telling ghost stories.

“There’s been rumors of a haunted cottage.” Kyrie hung the last piece of laundry on the line. “Only those brave enough would dare to venture close enough to see a white figure in the window.”

“Do you know where this place is?”

“I don’t.” She frowned. “Credo kept it a secret from--”

She stopped speaking, remembering her brother. There was a conversation with her brother in the week before his death. He had mentioned finding a troubling report in the Order’s archives and declined to elaborate further. He had to know something, didn’t he? 

“Say, Kyrie.” Nico hopped from the chair. “It sounds like the Order has more information, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Just what I thought and we’re going there once Nero gets home! You won’t tell him, right?”

“Erm, there might be some demonic activity there…”

Kyrie shook her head, placing the laundry basket on the patio table. “We’ll have to be careful then. I’ll need to borrow a gun from you.”

Nico shrugged. Why not?

\--

At least that didn’t take very long, Nero thought to himself as he made his way down the street with a sack of groceries in one hand and maintenance supplies in the other bag. Should be easy enough for him to take over watching the boys and for Kyrie to get back to her research.

Just what was it that she was researching? Maybe she’ll tell him when she’s good and ready, he supposed to himself. She looked so down yesterday when she came back from the library that he couldn’t help it but spend a little bit of extra money for some chocolates to cheer her up. She would probably fuss over it but be secretly glad that he thought of her.

His thoughts were interrupted when he stopped near the orphanage, staring at a hooded figure. The figure was mumbling to herself? She seemed to be having some trouble figuring out where she was and what she was doing.

“May I help you, ma’am?”

The woman startled at the sound of his voice, turning around. “I’m sorry. It’s been some time since I was last here. Things have changed so much. I think I’m chasing some ghosts here.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Something important I lost here.”

Was she one of the women who left a child at the orphanage? It was difficult to tell her age as she didn’t appear to be very old. Not that he could tell what with the hood covering her features. He also was aware of his poor luck with people wearing hoods as of late. Instead of hobo rags, she was wearing a black hoodie over a red tunic with rest of her outfit being black.

“And there’s another problem.” The woman remarked quietly. “I don’t have my memories of what happened before. Everything is a blank.”

Oh, that would make things difficult. Nero winced, feeling awkward as to how to proceed with this line of questioning. How does one deal with an amnesic person?

“I think I was a volunteer here. I’m sure of it because I think I remember coming out of the building and someone was waiting here for me.”

“Okay, so you didn’t leave a child at the orphanage?”

“No.” She winced, hand on her face. “I…”

The woman in red turned away from the orphanage, her voice coming through clear and certain. “I would be dead first if I ever gave up my child.”

She knew she had said those words before in a different conversation regarding children being left at the orphanage for various reasons; hardship leaving families unable to feed all of their children, young women who unfortunately fell pregnant whether they were of virtue or not. It was one of the many conversations at the dining table she shared with a man whose face she still could not recall.

Her gaze fell upon Nero, trying to scrutinize his face. “You look like someone I knew? Maybe?”

Nero started to say something but Sparda Family Brain Cell™ was having trouble firing its neutrons. “I’ve lived here all my life, so maybe?”

Not even five seconds later, the woman had vanished. What the hell? He only blinked once and she was gone in a flash. No, he was sure the woman was a human with a strong aura of loneliness.

“That was weird…”

\--

“Kyrie! I’m home!” Nero shouted into the house as he placed the groceries on the kitchen counter.

Kyrie popped out and gave Nero a quick peck on the lips before helping him put away the groceries. Nico was nervously tossing the workshop looking for a decent weapon that she could smuggle out without Nero noticing.

The idea of being asked to provide a weapon surprised the hell out of Nico but she figured Kyrie was stronger than she looked. Even though she eluded a strong sense of a goddess, Nico had quickly learned otherwise. Kyrie could easily wrangle children and get everyone to behave immediately with the right words.

She returned to the living room, barely catching the gist of the conversation in the kitchen regarding Nero’s weird encounter on the way home.

“There was a woman outside the orphanage.”

“Really?” Kyrie tried not to sound too eager. “I wonder if she was looking for her child? Did you see her face?”

“Nah. She had a hoodie on. She knew the place but obviously doesn’t dress like, you know.”

It went without saying that the residents of Fortuna had a very specific dress code which drove Nero up the wall. Everyone looked alike and you never knew who you were trying to converse with and he still never understood the point of covering their faces. Kyrie had eschewed the same idea of wearing the head wear despite being a little more religious than Nero.

(Even then with the newfound knowledge, Nero thought it was goddamn weird that there was a cult about his grandfather of all things…)

“So, it sounds like she moved away then?” Kyrie paused and went to grab her book bag. “I’ll be back, okay?”

“Love you!”

Nico groaned, an unlit cigarette between her fingers. She had learned better than that to complain about them needing to get a room. Choking on a cigarette in surprise was the last thing she expected to almost die from. Thanks for that, she grumbled quietly to herself.

\--

It had been five years since the incident and people were still trying to clean up the destruction. However, the work remained slow surrounding the Order’s headquarters which was how the rumors of demon activity got started. Considering those bastards had been doing illicit experiments on demons.

Nico still felt nothing for her father even as she stood before the building. He was the literal mad scientist and she had the unfortunate luck of inheriting his coloring and stuttering. Probably was the best that he wasn’t alive as she was pretty sure nothing good would have come of him still being around. The research notes that Nero showed her months ago had helped with the weapons development, alright.

Doesn’t mean there wasn’t still more stuff to be found here, there were researchers other than her father. This was especially important for Kyrie as she never had gone back to the building for her brother’s belongings. The only question, was this the right timing what with the rumors?

Not like that would have deterred Kyrie any as they made their way into the building, making sure to avoid possible structural weak spots that the workers had marked off. Sure, it was a little challenging navigating through, but they finally made it to Credo’s office which seemed to be mostly intact in spite of the destruction.

“I’m impressed.” Nico looked around. “I gotta find a researcher’s office or something.”

Kyrie only frowned a little bit while going through the desk, checking for secret compartments. She finally produced a set of notes, reading rapidly as she could. It seemed Credo had looked into it but only mentioned something about a man trying to find a husband for his niece and with his passing, the shipping company would be a part of the Order. However, he couldn’t find any evidence of the niece’s existence and it seemed that the shipping company had fallen into the Order’s hands anyway.

“Not another dead end… though, it does seem to match the story details.”

“Yo, Kyrie…” Nico stuck her head back into the office. “There’s someone here.”

“What?”

Bang. 

“Whoa. That’s a gunshot. Sounds like a shotgun. Not a custom, I’d wager.” Nico said, interested.

Bang.

The two looked into the hallway to see the woman in red reload the shotgun left-handed, complaining to herself. That particular style of reloading had the two give each other a “holy shit” look because there was only one person who loaded in the same manner. They looked back at the demon that had taken a considerable beating from the shotgun.

“Shit! I should have cleaned this better!”

The woman swung the shotgun around again to fire off another shot. This time, the demon stayed down as she flipped her hood off. Her black hair had faint red residue from a previous dye job.

“Oh. I didn’t think there were anyone here…” the woman glanced over to Kyrie and Nico who had popped out from the office completely.

“Wow! You’ve got some great technique! Though, the gun sounds like it’s in bad shape.” Nico stepped forth.

“I tried to clean it the best I could, but I couldn’t remember how to clean it just right. Too long. Memories still screwy.” The woman sighed. “I’m Kaja. Well, at least that’s what they say that my name is. You?”

“Nicoletta! You can call me Nico and this is Kyrie!”

Kyrie was staring at Kaja maybe a little too intensely. Oh yeah, she could see the family resemblance, especially with the long eyelashes. But how to approach this delicately?

“Wait, what do you mean? They said your name is Kaja?”

Okay, that wasn’t delicate.

“Um, best way I can put it is that I suffered some kind of trauma that wiped out my memories years ago. I was told that a powerful devil attacked me, killed my husband and my child was stillborn and … I remember nothing.”

What she had remembered told her differently, so why was Kaja even sticking to the story? She was at the Order headquarters for a reason because she remembered there was a researcher due to her uncle being furious over the mark on her back. She absently rubbed the sore spot on her back as it had flared up recently after lying dormant for the last couple of decades.

“So, you’re here because?”

“I thought the Order had documents on me, but the joke’s on me. I can’t even remember my real name!”

There were several demons crawling out of a hallway with murderous intent. One of them whispered menacingly _…kill the queen… kill the queen…_

“The heck?” Nico jammed a finger in her ear trying to make sure she heard that correctly. “I think we kind of need to go NOW.”

“Bastards! I needed that information!” Kaja fired the shotgun. “I NEED MY MEMORIES BACK!”

Kyrie realized that there were too many demons for them to take on at once, she had originally assumed the rumors were of “one or two”, not an entire swarm. Kaja seemed to be rather hellbent on taking them out all by herself. That explained way too much about Nero’s personality, Kyrie sighed to herself.

The three of them were running out of the building with Kaja blasting at them, loading and swearing at the same time. Nico was getting more impressed with every creative stream of swearing, still thinking up ways of improving the shotgun.

Then the damn shotgun broke after a demon got too close and lunged at her, causing Kaja to swing it up in a defensive stance.

“MOTHERFUCKER! NANNY GAVE ME THAT! YOU FUCKING BASTARD!”

Kyrie pulled out the smuggled gun from the book bag and fired away, knocking the demon back with some impressive distance. Nico beamed at the results of her work.

“Alright! I knew Lil’ Bee worked perfectly! Maybe I should improve the kick on that.”

The trio finally had gotten out of the headquarters and were a considerable distance away, huffing and panting in the main street. Kaja was still swearing over her broken shotgun until Nico reminded her that she was the weapon artist and could improve it. Kaja reluctantly handed the shotgun over to Nico.

“Does it have a name?”

“I don’t think so. It was just something Nanny gave me. Said I would need it to defend myself, but I can’t remember what. I know that the ‘attack’ story must be a lie because if I was attacked by a powerful demon, I would have used the shotgun. But at the same time, I can’t deny that I was marked by a demon.”

Kyrie and Nico exchanged looks with a single, “What.”

“At first, it used to be a small blue rose on my back. I was told that the only way I would be “free” from the demon is that if the mark turns white, then that means the demon died. It faded to white about thirteen years ago. Then a month ago, it turned black with blue thorns around it. That’s why I broke into the Order headquarters to see if they had anything on this.”

Then that’s when it hit Nico. “Oh boy. The demon resurrected, didn’t he.” And she knew just who this particular demon was.

“Really. I think I need to talk to him. After you fix the shotgun for me, of course.” Kaja handed the shotgun over to Nico, immediately shutting her up as she got hyper fixated on improving the weapon.

“Does the mark bother you?” Kyrie asked. “I mean, I have some ointment for it if you need it.”

“It’s okay for now. Thanks.”

“Oh, um, are you Rina Fortune too?”

“How did you know that?” Kaja sounded surprised.

“Just a little hunch! I read the book to the boys last night-- my significant other and I adopted some boys who needed homes badly. I was thinking about the book since it was one of my favorite books. It sounded like you were writing it for your child, right?”

“Yeah. That’s right. My therapist suggested I write out my feelings and that’s how I ended up with the book. They’re based off of my dreams because my memories are still a blank even though some of it is coming back.”

Kyrie wanted so badly to shake Kaja and tell her that her baby was alive and well. This matter still had to be handled as delicately as possible in order but what if Kaja wasn’t able to remember everything?

“Oh! You’re invited over for dinner if you’re feeling up for it?”

“Why not? That sounds great.”

\--

Immediately after closing the garage door on his male relatives out of instinct, Nero facepalmed and opened the door again.

Vergil could only manage an annoyed expression. “I am not here to rip your arm off again.”

Not like he wasn’t already ashamed of what happened in the garage between both of them previously. At the time, he had been operating on sheer instinct and a desperate need to defeat his twin. That he did the unthinkable, ripping his own son’s arm off for the sword that was embedded within. Never thought to ask why the sword was in Fortuna or why the boy had it in the first place.

Carina would have kicked his ass if she knew.

“I’m aware of that. I thought you two were gone forever? What the hell gives?”

Dante cleared his throat. “That’s kind of my fault. I told him that you were left at an orphanage. So, he’s here to try to make up things.”

Which was all Nero ever wanted in the first place, to learn more about his family. Anything he knew was just Fortuna’s take on Sparda as a god, nothing about the actual man himself. Not like the twins could adequately explain to Nero either.

Vergil wasn’t sure where he should start, still not wanting to believe the worst possible outcome had happened while he was off on doing stupid things for power. This was his chance to address things.

“I will tell you about your mother.”

“So, you actually know her name then?” Nero scoffed.

“You are without a doubt, Carina’s child.”

“Really.”

“I spent over a month with her. The first time we met, I was in Fortuna looking for information on Sparda. I was starving and sleep deprived and I don’t know what made her look at me that day. She took me to her cottage and demanded that I take better care of myself. I did not deserve her kindness that day. I had tried to scare her off but she wasn’t putting up with my nonsense.”

They moved to the living room, Nero still digesting that bit of information. He felt relieved with that information because it had burned away at him worrying that his mother could have been a one time fling or a prostitute. That she had meant something *more* to his father mattered a lot.

“Why did you leave her anyway? Wasn’t she good enough for you?”

Vergil winced. “It was me. I abandoned her because I felt like I wasn’t strong enough to protect her. I don’t know if she knew she was pregnant at the time and decided that telling me wouldn’t have changed my mind. I’m sure she probably cursed my existence for days.”

“I’m not surprised.” Dante remarked. “From what you told me, she swore just as much as Nero does.”

“She was also going through a difficult time. I’m afraid I may have made things worse for her but I am certain that her uncle never followed through with the plan of selling her off.”

“The hell? Selling her off?!”

“Her uncle was looking to gain power and prestige in Fortuna. He had her tucked away in a cottage with a specific rule of no male guests, something about needing her virtue intact.”

Nero didn’t need his father to spell out the sordid details of how her virtue was thoroughly wrecked in that month.

“BESIDES THE POINT. How do you know she wasn’t sold off after giving birth to me?”

“Because one of our final conversations regarding the orphanage where she used to volunteer at. She said that she would rather die than give up her child.”

Then the Sparda Family Brain Cell™ started working as Nero’s blue eyes went wide. He had heard those exact words not too long ago.

\--

“Ugh.” Kaja slumped over, dropping to her knees.

They had just arrived at the house just as her back started burning as she grabbed it. Something deep in her soul screamed out _he’s here he’s here he’s here he’s here_

“Kaja?” Kyrie asked. “Are you okay?! Do you need some treatment?”

“I can’t stay. I have to go.”

“Kaja?!”

She took off in a flash before Kyrie had a chance to protest. Crap! She had finally found Nero’s mom and she was gone just like that again. Nico shrugged, looking over at Kyrie.

“She’ll be back for her shotgun. Don’t worry.”

“You’re right, Nico.”

Just as at that moment, Nero burst out of the house. “KYRIE! You’re back!”

“Oh, hello, honey! Is everything alright?”

“Um, we have some unexpected guests and I gotta tell you something really important.”

“Funny, I was about to say the same thing too… but I’ve lost my guest.”

“Meanwhile!” Nico shook the shotgun at Nero. “I’ve got art to make happen! Toddles!”

Nero stared at Nico who promptly disappeared into the garage. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what she was up or where the shotgun came from. Then he turned back to Kyrie, sighing.

“I better check on my idiot relatives before they’ve destroyed the living room.”

Kyrie’s mouth dropped open then she let out a laugh. Oh wow. She hadn’t been expecting that but that did give her a perfect chance to ask Dante some serious questions. Then there was that supper to cook for everyone. Only if Kaja hadn’t run away.

Surprisingly, Dante and Vergil were behaving with their asses firmly planted on the couch, watching the boys wreak havoc in the house. Vergil rose an eyebrow at Nero.

“I was unaware that you already have a family.”

“Kyrie and I took them in because they didn’t have anywhere to go. The orphanage is still a little short staffed at the moment.”

“Oh, Dante!” Kyrie beamed in a certain manner that convinced Dante that he might be on the receiving end of intense questioning that he wasn’t sure he could survive. “I thought you told Nero that you were his uncle?”

“I said I did.”

“THE HECK YOU DID.”

“Nero.” Kyrie rose a hand to keep him from lunging at his uncle. “Dante, what exactly did you say?”

“Oh, regarding Yamato? I said it was my brother’s sword and that it needed to stay in the family. I let Nero borrow the sword to save you. Then later, I told Nero to keep it.”

Nero was sputtering with outrage as Vergil pinched the bridge of his nose. What was this foolishness?

“Dante, you absolute fool. The way you phrased that, no one would have inferred anything from that statement.”

“What was I supposed to say? Hey, Nero, I’m your uncle and by the way I killed your dad on Mallet Island ten years ago? I didn’t want to deal with more questions.”

Nero threw his hands up and Kyrie chose this time to retreat to the kitchen. He sat in one of the other chairs, still feeling irritated with his relatives. He didn’t feel too confident about leaving them by themselves.

“Okay, so dad. You said you spent a month with my mom, right?”

“Yes. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I fell hard for her. Do you remember when my human half was dreaming about her?”

Yeah, Nero hadn’t forgotten the time he caught V in the middle of a nap dream. He hadn’t elaborated on what the dream was about but it was painful enough to make him weep openly. 

“So, that’s what the dream was?”

“I was afraid to look for your mother when I came to the hospital. I didn’t want to see her in my diminished appearance and deal with questions. I failed to consider the possibility that she could truly be dead and gone.”

His voice cracked, barely getting the sentence out, suddenly standing up from the couch. Dante almost leapt from the couch with a quiet “Vergil?” but Vergil shook his head.

“I have to see the truth with my own eyes. I will return shortly for supper.”

Nero didn’t even have a chance to protest before his father abruptly departed from the house, the front door slamming. He jumped from the chair, running to the door with his hand on the knob.

“Hey, kid. I know what you’re thinking. But he’s gotta do this himself. We can only support him.”

“But, Dante.” Nero let go of the knob. “That’s the thing. Mom isn’t dead.”

Now it was Dante’s turn to look surprised as he got up from the couch slowly. “What makes you think that, kid?”

“When he said that my mom said she would rather be dead than give me up. A woman I met earlier said the same exact thing. I am so sure that woman was her.”

Kyrie had been listening to the entire conversation and walked into the living room, handing Nero and Dante hot cocoa in mugs. Nero gratefully took the mug while Dante held his, looking pretty awkward.

“I did meet her earlier. Nico is improving her shotgun right now. Nero, it is just as you said, she remembers very little. She was the one who wrote the book for you and said that it was all she could remember from her dreams.”

“Kyrie… this must have been a crazy day for you.”

“Your mom fights just like you in battle. Shooting left-handed and reloading in the same exact manner. Oh, and she swore a lot.”

Nero spewed the hot chocolate into Dante’s face.

“Oh my god, Kyrie! I’m so sorry that she did that!”

“Oh, it’s okay. At the time we were being chased by demons who were all “kill the queen”.”

“What queen?”

Dante grabbed a dishtowel offered by Kyrie, wiping his face with it. “That’s interesting considering your dad is the King of Hell.”

“When did that happen!?”

“Urizen ate the fruit. The same fruit Trish said that Mundus used to rule Hell.”

Nero had missed that entire moment because he was helping V to his final destination. At the time, neither Dante or Nero had realized who V was and Dante’s realization came too late when V stabbed Urizen with the cane.

“Oh. Kaja… um, I mean Carina? She said that she was marked by a demon?”

Dante spewed the hot chocolate in Nero’s face who yelped angrily and grabbed the dish towel, wiping his face. He doubled over with a wheezing laughter, gasping for air to Nero’s annoyance.

Holy shit, his brother had left THAT detail out. That must have been a highly personal thing for him to do, probably was why he was too embarrassed to talk about it. He could barely say anything about being intimate with Carina.

“I’m sorry. Wow. She said that? What else did she say?”

“She said that the mark turned white when the demon died thirteen years ago?”

“Right, that matches up with Mallet Island incident. Woof. I’m betting it changed when he came back too.”

“How did you know that? She was trying to find out more so she could understand what the mark meant. So, what is it?”

Nero did the mental math and suddenly wished the Sparda Family Brain Cell™ would turn off right now.

“Kyrie, I think this is a question better left unanswered.” Nero covered Dante’s face with the dish towel.

\--

“I’m a master artist!” Nico exclaimed proudly of herself having finished the modifications to the shotgun.

It shone brightly than it ever had before and could take more bullets in the chambers, plus it had a nice kick to it. A little idea inspired by the other gun, Lil’ Bee. Now, how to name the shotgun? It definitely needed a name worthy of its design.

Plus, it would be far more effective against demons than its original form did before with the upgrades and custom bullets. The woman was such a badass to the point Nico was seriously considering giving her a discount just for that alone. Not to mention that she wasn’t bad looking too but eurgh, she was definitely Nero’s mom.

Nico popped back into the house, still holding the shotgun. “Hey, what’s the deal? Your dad left already?”

Nero nodded, still holding the dish towel in Dante’s face. “Yeah. What’s that?”

“Oh, your mom’s shotgun. I was thinking that it needed a name.”

“Terrific!”

“Why are you holding a towel in his face?”

Dante only cackled, taking the towel away to Nero’s annoyance. Kyrie handed a mug to Nico who started sipping it right away.

“Just that I found out that my brother did something highly personal that he won’t talk about.”

“What’s more personal than banging a hot woman like her?”

“NICO.”

\--

The journey was rough, never having bothered to search this part of Fortuna before. There was no reason for him to be in a graveyard because he would have never found his father there. The more he thought about her being dead, the more he felt cold on the inside. The wind chilled just as his heart did, snowflakes dancing.

He kept searching the graveyard for something, finding nothing but strangers. Then his eyes finally fell over a modest looking stone that bore her name. Here was his answer, the answer he didn’t want. He dropped to his knees at the finality of it all. The size of the gravestone was an intentional insult meant to belittle Carina for her rebellion.

Should have listened to her when she begged him not to leave her. He knew why she didn’t fight harder because he still wouldn’t have bent to her desperate need. He didn’t know how she died but swore if it was possible, he would avenge her. He would punish that damn wicked uncle for what was done to his beloved.

The snow storm picked up pace, matching the grief and fury in his heart. He let out a primal, tortured scream in tune with the roaring wind. He could feel himself slipping into Sin Devil Trigger slowly with his wings unfurling on his back, nails extending into claws. Skin slowly turning scaly and tail sliding out from under his long black coat.

Damn it all!

He chose power over her and he deserved to be punished more than anything in the world for this. His original target of going after power to never be helpless like he was a child when his mother was killed only to realize that in the end, power no longer mattered when he had no one left to protect.

He felt a pair of arms wrap his body along with warm body pressed into his back, his mind trying to dismiss it as a figment of human imagination.

“Vergil. I’m here.”


	3. Restoration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Carina recovers her true self. Plot bricks abound including some interesting function of Sparda Family Brain Cell (tm) at work.

Trying to reorient herself in this island city was proving to be a problem. She knew she had lived here before but the memories were just off in distance like dreams slipping through fingers. Which made things a bloody nuisance trying to figure out just where she was supposed to go in a particular direction.

“Didn’t think I’d be back here in this damned town. Thought I meant to leave for good.”

Now, why did Kaja say that? She did remember the feeling that she never belonged and that the cult had creeped her out. She thought they were worshiping something based on lies, on a person who may have never existed in the first place. Kaja also had a distant feeling that she managed to make someone angry with her remarks but this was just one of the many memories out of reach for her.

“Thanks, doc!”

\--

About a week ago, Kaja returned to therapy which was something she hadn’t done in quite some time to treat her depression 13 years ago. For years, she had been dreaming of being a beautiful princess in a floaty white ball gown. The dreams had such a surreal quality to them that whenever she woke up, she was stuck in a fog where she wasn’t sure if she was still dreaming. In those dreams, there was always an equally handsome prince but she could never remember his face upon waking.

The dream that had sent her to therapy in the first place was when her prince, horribly disfigured and clad in heavy black armor was dying in her arms. The feeling of despair lingered with her in the morning and for weeks afterwards to the point her roommate had to do everything in their power to get her help. 

Talking had helped somewhat, but it wasn’t like she could explain her backstory fully and the white marking to the therapist. She was given tools to cope with the heavy feeling of despair and there was suggestion that the dreams may have been based on her trauma of losing her family. 

Her return was compelled by the dreams but they had taken on a different shape this time. It would always start off light then end in the darkness at the base of a tree. A tree with its branches twisting towards both sides, heaven and hell. The tree meant nothing to her and she wasn’t sure why but she kept hearing William Blake poetry being spoken into her ear by an intimate lover.

Then she discovered there was a news report about a tree in Red Grave and she had realized that was not a dream. So she discussed with her therapist about the possibly that her dreams were memories trying to break through and the therapist thought that a gentle exploration of her old hometown could shake things loose but cautioned that it could unearth old trauma too.

And that was why she was in Fortuna to anchor her dreams into reality. Writing that children’s book years ago was an attempt to make sense of her dreams and at the behest of her roommate, she published it. Soon as she thought about the book, she remembered there was a library. Of course, she was a volunteer, it was one of the few ways she bargained for in order to get out of the cottage and breathe.

Cottage? 

So many memories out of order. Rubbing her temples, she felt as though as she could see herself walking with someone to the library building. Then she thought she saw herself in a red dress leaving the building towards the orphanage. The only logical conclusion presented to her was to follow the memory ghosts in hopes that she would gain some answers.

She could hear a voice whispering in the wind, telling one of the many made up stories that came from her mind to the children. Yes, she remembered being so lonely in the cottage and writing stories in private to entertain herself. She shared those stories with the children because she wanted them to be heard. The children loved the story times and would always beg her to come back every day.

 _Cat! Cat! More stories please!_

A name? But it was not quite her own as she remembered giving that name to the children so they could pronounce it easier than the one that she was given. She hated her original name because it was fit for a princess and she was not a princess.

“What was my name?”

“May I help you, ma’am?”

Kaja startled at the sound of a new person near her. A young man who was carrying bags was standing off to her side, seemingly concerned about her. White hair and blue eyes so much like someone she knew before. Before? Who was he?

“I’m sorry. It’s been some time since I was last here. Things have changed so much. I think I’m chasing ghosts.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Something I lost here.”

There was a strong air of familiarity around this young man, but she couldn’t understand why. He would be the same age her child would be if he had lived? If? No. She wasn’t sure but looking at him, she needed to put her arms around him and apologize for being a bad mother, for not fighting harder to keep him from being taken away.

“And there’s another problem. I don’t have my memories of what happened before. Everything is a blank.I think I was a volunteer here. I’m sure of it because I think I remember coming out of the building and someone was waiting here for me.”

“Okay, so you didn’t leave a child at the orphanage?”

“No. I…” She clenched her jaw. “I would be dead first if I ever gave up my child.”

A remembered conversation with a man at the dining table with a sudden flash of her reaching out screaming for her child. The two memories were jumbling together, ripping through like a headache.

“You look like someone I knew? Maybe?”

The memories were getting difficult to untangle so she ran into a side alley without hearing what the young man’s response. The therapist had warned that it would be possible that the memories would be returning out of order. Some more traumatic than others.

But now she was so sure of it, her child was never stillborn. He was living and breathing in her arms when she held him. Kaja also had the distant feeling that she was cursing his father for not being present.

How much of her life was based on lies?

She wasn’t sure how she managed it but she was in front of the cottage, astonished that it was still standing after being abandoned for years. Nature had reclaimed it as she muttered about the need for a weed whacker just to get to the front door. She reached up to the door frame, withdrawing the key from the hidden place.

_“Aikaterine, this is your house from now on until you get married to a suitable man. You are in charge of it and I will supply you with a budget to spend as you see fit on food, clothing, and entertainment. You must not leave the cottage or have any unapproved male visitors.”_

Kaja recoiled from the memory, now remembering the first day she came to the cottage as a young child with an older woman who had raised her from infancy. She was banished to this cottage as soon as she began the transition from a child to a woman and no longer allowed out in public with her peers. No more friends of the opposite gender as she must stay pure for her future husband.

Nothing but carefully selected private tutors to continue her education while she was locked up in the cottage. Nanny had hated seeing her suffer and did everything in her power to make the child’s stay comfortable as much as possible. It was from that day she resented the name, refusing to answer to it even earning few slaps from her uncle in the process.

Ever since, she had to learn how to choose her battles.

Kaja rubbed her cheek, remembering the memory of the slap and pushed the front door open after the lock clicked open. The furnishing was just as where they should have been, but covered in white sheets and layers of dust. It was so pitiful how the cottage had fallen apart since she was forcibly departed.

Forcibly departed?

Whispered memories around the cottage as she wandered through the living room, another name floating in the air. Rose Red. Yes, Nanny always called her that name due to the fairy tales she would read to the child before the banishment. After the banishment, she had begged Nanny to stop reading to her because no one would save her from this hell. Saying that had hurt her and Nanny both because they knew they were powerless against the guardian.

Then Nanny did something that surprised both of them. Kaja opened a hallway closet, pulling out a shotgun, muscle memory responding to it in her left hand. Of course it needed to be cleaned and oiled due to years of neglect. She tried to clean it the best she could with a discarded cloth from the same closet, unable to remember how to disassemble it to give the shotgun a proper cleaning.

_“Rose Red, I bought this for you. Your uncle clearly didn’t think about armed guards when he banished you here. I’ll teach you how to shoot.”_

So many times she had been out in the backyard, shooting tin cans whenever she got angry after her uncle’s monthly visits. Those visits were always punctuated with moments of tension with her process on being a perfect wife. 

Perfect wife? Hardly.

The mark on her back started burning at the word. Then that was when things got weird for her as she moved through the house, still holding the shotgun. She wasn’t sure why her dream was now mingling with the memories, but that seemed to be what was in play here as she opened the door to the library hearing music coming from the room.

Kaja had done this once in the past when she originally opened the door on the prince who was doing a tap-dance route with a long katana. His eyes were closed as he swayed to the music, executing a series of perfect moves. She immediately closed the door with a whispered, “What the fuck?”

Kaja stared at the library as this room was covered in white sheets. She stepped into the room, pulling a sheet off of a record player, a large ‘Singing in the Rain’ record still in place.

“That was definitely real. I know I’m not crazy but this is the part where I should say that I’m crazy. Who the hell tap dances in this day and age anyway?”

She put the cloth back on the record player, clearly disturbed by the memory. Kaja slid out of the library closing the door with a yet another “what the fuck” under her breath. More jumble of memories in this cottage as she moved from room to room. The more she thought about it, the dreams were definitely memory ghosts reconfiguring themselves to reach her.

It would explain why she kept seeing the prince but his face was always hard to make out and it frustrated her to no end. She remembered the feel of his face, the shape of his lips on hers, his chiseled cheekbones, the little dimple in his cheek. So, why couldn’t she invoke his face from her memory but still remember the feeling?

Finally, she reached the main bedroom and even before she placed a hand on the knob, she knew this room was hers. So many intimate moments here, making her weak at the knees. Gathering courage, she pushed the door open.

Then the memories blasted into her one by one. The first evening in his arms, learning so much about their bodies and how well they fit. Countless acts of intimacy, always ending curled up on the bed content with him whispering poetry in her ear. Whenever he did that, it would always make her shiver from his seductive voice as if he was daring her to keep burning for him.

“I obviously got laid a lot here.” Kaja muttered, trying to sort out the memories.

She threw the closet open and it was full of standard Fortuna dress code which made her swear. She hated wearing those dresses and blending into the crowd! Even when she had won her freedom to go about as she pleased, she was still commanded to wear the head wear to hide her face lest she be corrupted. As if men would fall over with lustful thoughts at just seeing her face. What a stupid idea.

Now, that she did remember the day the hood fell off was the day when she met her prince. They obviously had a lot of practice wrecking her virtue in the days that came afterwards when they fell for each other.

_“...Carina… you torture me so.”_

“My name?” Kaja snapped at the memory. “Yes, that’s my name.”

Beat.

“I’m a fucking dumbass. I used the name Rina for the book.”

She facepalmed immediately. It still didn’t feel quite right to return to her true name yet. Still too much missing as she absent-mindedly rubbed her burning mark. The closet doors slammed shut as she checked through the dresser and pulled out a piece of white lacy thing which was reasonably shredded as if a certain blue devil had gotten frisky.

Her cheeks burned at the memory from mixed emotions of rage, shame, and surprise. Her uncle had sent the thing as a reminder that the day was approaching soon when she would turn 18. The accompanying note said it was something that she should wear for her carefully selected husband on their wedding night, strongly suggesting that he had found a candidate already. Only three months left till she turned 18 and that left a bitter taste in her mouth as she knew time was running out. The crassness of the gift had pissed her off so much until her prince caught her trying to stuff the box into the closet.

_“Will you put it on for me?”_

She was thrown aback by his request that day. He had pulled her into an embrace and gently told her that she needed not to despair for he would not allow it. There was one thing that they could do that would prevent her from being sold off but it would involve a rather intimate ritual. Would she be willing to go through with it? It was not a choice to take lightly.

Her cheeks turned red as the memories broke loose. She now remembered his face, how he transformed into a blue devil. And she still found him beautiful, even if a little frightening. She had told him that it didn’t matter what he looked like, she would always love him whether a human or a devil. 

Yeah, there was no need to go into detail regarding the ritual. She shook her head clearly, all too aware of how the mark had wound up on her back and why the lacy thing had gotten shredded. The drawer shut with a gentle slam, still at a loss as to where to go next except for finding a bathroom to douse herself with a cold shower.

_“A demon has marked her as his bride. When the mark turns white, that means the demon is dead. But the mark will stay with her for life.”_

Anger boiled in her gut. The memory of that spoken line was still in a fog and she struggled to remember the “earliest” memory after her memory loss. She had woken up in a dark room, feeling painful and tender. There was a stranger in the house who had told her that she was moved out of her cottage for safety as the demon who had attacked her husband was after her. The stress of the attack caused her lose her child once she asked as to why her body ached. The stranger also claimed that she was marked for death by the demon, saying that the only way she would be free is when the mark turned white.

She stared at the shotgun in her lap, checking it over again to see if she missed anything. Of what she had remembered, she realized that she didn’t remember her husband’s name. How was it that she only regained her name, but not his? The two different answers about the marking on her back confused her. All she knew was that the blue rose faded to white then came back as black with blue thorns in an eternity knot.

What was the meaning behind this? Ah, the stranger wore the clothing of the Order. That damn cult! What if they did something to her? Or did they have more information on the marking beyond what the memories held?

\--

Breaking into the headquarters shouldn’t have been this easy but of course there was the clean-up to contend with and it seemed that the important people in the Order went missing. No matter what; she didn’t need people, she needed the books. This task would have been easier if there weren’t so many damned libraries in the main building alone.

This made her inner volunteer librarian die many times over with a fresh swear every time she tried to find a book on demon rituals. Unsurprisingly, this turned out to be a fruitless search and the memories were trying to entice her into remembering again.

Her mind looped back to the dream with the prince dying in her arms. Now that she clearly remembered his face, she wondered what the hell had happened to him that would transform him into a mindless husk who couldn’t even speak. She was so sure that he was struggling to speak her name in her dream but he was only able to reach out to touch her face before dropping his hand as he died in her arms.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a movement and swung up her shotgun.

“Come on. I know there’s something there.”

There was chittering that didn’t sound like it was anything of this world as she rolled her eyes with a “oh bullshit” loose from her lips. Then she fired the shotgun twice as soon a demon made itself known.

At that moment, Kyrie and Nico had run into Kaja and the shotgun was broken in the middle of fleeing from the building. So much swearing was had to the point Nico was impressed and Kyrie didn’t even have the time to process what had just happened because she shot a demon with a tiny but very strong gun.

The trio were walking towards to Kyrie’s house after a nice round of conversation and Kyrie offering an invitation for supper. Something in her soul caused her to panic and she didn’t understand why. She immediately took off, not caring where she was going as long as she could get away to think and breathe.

\--

“Why the hell did I do that? Was I not ready to face him after so long? I mean, is he even really alive? Do I even remember his name!? Hello, husband! I fucking lost my memories and forgot your name!”

Then she froze, staring at the gravestone before her. When the hell did she end up in the graveyard? Hell, was this actually her own gravestone? A tiny pathetic thing with “Aikatherine” engraved on it? Holy crap.

“Cheap bastard still trying to punish me? If I find him, he’s dead. Oh why do I care? I’m alive right now! ALIVE AND BREATHING! I could give him a damn heart attack right now!”

Speaking of which, off in the distance, she could see a shining golden gravestone. Provoked by her curiosity, she trod towards the gaudy monument. Once she read the name off of it, she was amazed by this revelation. Karma had gotten her uncle in the end. One of the memories slipped through the fog--

That evening when her husband left on a foolish errand for power, the last thing she did was calling him an idiot. Spent the evening crying in her room and refusing to come out in the days that followed despite Nanny trying to coax her with comfort meals. Carina was beyond heartbroken because her heart had fooled her into thinking that her love would have forgotten his original goal. No, she decided that she shouldn’t have to depend on anyone else to deal with her problems.

The monthly visit with her uncle did not go as well as expected because he had gotten reports that she had broken the important rule, no unapproved male visitors. She had smiled at him and said that she didn’t see why her beloved husband should be banned from her cottage. That earned her a slap as he screamed at her for being a harlot. She returned the slap with a punch to the face, breaking the nose retorting that it was rich coming from him when he was the one who was no different from a pimp.

It had turned into an angry yelling match as he was shocked that she would go as far as to defend herself, not daring to raise a hand again. He said that she had no proof of marriage and she shouted that she did and it was branded on her back. That once her husband returned, he would be very angry as he was a devil. This frightened her uncle so much that he left the cottage without a word.

The following month after, she found herself feeling very sick to her stomach. Nanny had asked her about her monthlies and Carina couldn’t remember when she last had one as stress caused it difficult for her to maintain her cycle regularly. Nanny sighed and said that there was a good chance that she might be with a child.

A child? The only proof that their love was real, she thought to herself. It did feel like a dream since her husband left the city. There were some mornings where she wasn’t sure it had ever happened in the first place. Her uncle had skipped that month’s visit for which she was grateful for as it would give her some time to think. She needed a way to get out of the city if at all possible.

Carina gave the gravestone a good hard kick. Ouch.

“Rest in pieces, you crusty old bastard.”

Her stomach grumbled softly as she realized that she should haven’t fled in the first place. How rude of her to flee from kindness after she accepted the offer. A white fluff flew past her face as her eyes followed it towards where her small gravestone was. The prince was actually standing there?

No, she clearly remembered that his coat was blue with golden trimming. This time, it was the same color as the marking on her back. Black and blue. She watched him slowly slip into his transformation from grief and took off running towards him as the snow storm raged on, hiding her visibility.

\--

“Hey! Nero! Look! It’s snowing!” Julio yelled.

“I didn’t know it could snow this early!”

Nero only answered the children with a flat “what” as Dante tapped his chin, finding this vaguely amusing. Nico had slipped into her mad scientist mode as she wondered how to harness this information into weapon research.

\--

His name finally found its way onto her lips as she slipped her arms around his body. How had she forgotten it for so long?

“Vergil. I’m here.”

She could feel him stiffen in shock as if he didn’t know what to think upon hearing her voice. This should have been impossible but it was hard to deny the warmth that was melting away at his coldness. He took a deep breath, held it in his chest as if he was trying to calm himself then he finally released the air.

“Carina? But…?”

“Bastard tossed me off the island and declared me dead for the embarrassment of being a devil’s whore.”

“I could find him and kill him for you.”

“Actually, I was going to do that myself but I think death beat us to it in the first place.”

He let out a deep laugh. The storm had started calming down as Carina let go, not sure how she was able to hug him from behind with the wings in the way. Wait, she definitely didn’t remember a tail before.

“The hell happened? Why do you have a tail? Why are your eyes gray? And what’s with the goth prince look?”

She was full of so many questions as he turned around, studying her with an amused expression. A pity, he had gotten so used to the dress she hated wearing in the past if only because it was all she was allowed to wear. Not that he didn’t like her current ensemble what with the black leggings showing off her curves.

“I could say the same of you. Did you actually try to dye your hair? I was so sure you had died because I know you would never give up our son without a fight…”

“Yeah, about that. My memory is still a mess. I think the Order used something strong on me but I kept breaking through and they kept having to drug me over and over saying that you were the demon who killed my husband and caused me to lose our baby.”

“Hmph. It’s a rather long story regarding my appearance. I was dead for some time and in an attempt to resurrect myself, I foolishly split myself into two.”

“EXCUSE ME? Hang on a second, how were you dead!? I had a dream that you were dead in my arms and it sent me into therapy! What the hell happened to you thirteen years ago?”

“Another long story.” Vergil sighed, letting the remnants of Sin Devil Trigger fade away. “It seems we have quite a bit to catch up.”

“Speaking of catching up?”

Several minutes passed by before they finally jumped each other in the graveyard with hungry kisses, some clothing discarded and more.

\--

“Looks like it’s stopped snowing. How about that?” Dante remarked. “I would hope Vergil has at least calmed down now.”

“What do you mean?! Since when my father can make it snow? Oh right, the stupid fruit again!”

“You might as well call him Elsa at this point. We know he’s capable of singing.”

Nero squinted at his uncle, still muttering. That was a definite “what the fuck” moment he had when he caught V doing a musical tap-dancing route in middle of a fight with the summoned beasts taking down the monsters. Nero had yelled at V to quit showing off and actually finish them off.

“Think Kyrie can make him a dress?”

“He would try to murder you.”

“Story of my life.”

“Quit being a dumbass.” Nero jabbed a finger in Dante’s face. “Don’t make me turn this house around!”

The front door opened with a really loud squeak as Nero went whatthefuck at the squeak. He was going to take that door out and shoot it for the squeaking. Or make Nico deal with it whatever, she was the crazy genius.

“Oh, you’re back! … both of you.” Kyrie said, surprised. “Hot chocolate?”

Both Vergil and Carina awkwardly took mugs but not before Nico suddenly spotted the fact that their clothes were grass-stained and crumpled. She started breaking out into a fit of the giggles before hitting full on laughing until she was crying on the floor.

“What the hell’s your problem---” Nero finally noticed both of his parents standing there.

“Erm, hi, I’m your mom.”

“We met at the orphanage.”

“I meant what I said that time.”

“I know.”

“Also, your father is a jerk for not coming back sooner.”

“I know that too.”

“Carina.” Vergil groaned. “That hurt.”

“You deserved that.” She scowled, sipping from the mug.

Nico was finally able to catch her breath before she stood back up and tapped Nero’s shoulder. Nero did not like this ominous vibe coming from Nico, trying hard not to look at her.

“What.”

“Your parents had graveyard sex.”

“WHAT THE BLEEP. NICO. SHUT UP.”

“I’m not surprised.” Dante chuckled while dodging yet another death glare from either Vergil or Nero. “Hey, don’t glare at me if it’s true.”

“I refuse to dignify that with a remark.”

“Why is it a big deal anyway? I mean, we’re pretty much married.” Carina shrugged. “Just instead of paperwork, it’s just a fancy tattoo…in a manner of speaking.”

“Oh yeah! Before I forget!”

Nico whipped out the shotgun and presented it to Carina who exclaimed with surprise as she gave it a good once-over.

“Should shoot better than before and will have the same knock-back like Lil’ Bee! I haven’t been able to figure out the name just yet… but since you say that you two are married. How about ‘Husband Keeper’?”

Vergil pinched the bridge of his nose. More foolishness. He didn’t feel like starting a bloody rant about his feelings on guns and how they clashed with the aesthetic. He had thought it was silly for Carina to have a shotgun back then and still did even now.

“That’s one hell of a face journey you’re on right now? It’s the usual “guns are stupid, it clashes with my silent samurai thing’ bullshit again?”

Damn, called out like that.

Vergil just squinted at her. “I don’t recall you having a problem with my look if you told me to peel your panties off.”

“DAD. NO. YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY BANNED FROM TALKING DIRTY TO MY MOM.”

Nico snorted at Nero. “Not like I didn’t already have to listen to you and Kyrie behind that closed door at night. EVERY NIGHT.”

If Nero could swear, he would be doing it right now punctuated with some angry yelling and some more angry yelling. But all that ever came out was BLEEP and BLEEP and finally an “I’m going to stand outside and pretend I never heard any of this conversation.”

“This family is more entertaining than I thought.” Kyrie laughed softly. “I’m sure Nero’s just glad that everyone’s back even though you two may have scarred him for life.”

“He beat me in that fight.” Vergil snorted, finishing his chocolate. “May I have some more? This is delicious.”

\--

Carina had gone outside to check on her son who was currently sulking in the melting snow. The children were pouting at the vanishing snow and trying to throw melted gunk at each other as much as they could.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just a little mortifying. Sorry, mom.” 

“Hey, it’s okay. Um, I remembered a little more now. I know I named you Nero. The day I gave birth to you was the happiest day of my life. You were just a cute tiny thing in my arms, I was so relieved to finally meet you. They gave me a few days alone with you because the Order researcher wanted to see if you really had Sparda’s blood.”

“Wait, someone knew about me?”

“I don’t think they ever made that information public to rest of the people in the order because that woman decided you were too human in spite of your hair and blue eyes. She said it was possible that you could manifest powers later. Should’ve seen the look on their faces when they tried to take you away from me.”

“What happened, mom?”

That evening, the uncle decided that he had enough of his niece’s miserable existence in the household and demanded that she be removed from it while he would keep the child. Nanny became furious with him and ordered that she would never let history repeat like he had done to Carina and her mother. The researcher had came back with some drugs at the uncle’s behest as they were said to erase memories.

Carina became furious when he tried to reach for her child, swiping him away with a giant blue specter-like hand coming from her body. Finally, he ordered the guards to restrain her and she was still weakened from childbirth, making it difficult for her to fight back even with the specters. As soon as the uncle left the room with her baby, she used the hand to reach out, screaming her child’s name.

Then everything went black.

“I don’t know how you ended up in the orphanage but I can only guess that whatever happened, uncle never got to keep you.”

“Is he alive so I could shoot him for you because I could do that, mom.”

“I swear this is a family trait, but no. Dead.”

“Damn.” Nero sighed and winced, forgetting that he was still outside with the boys but they didn’t seem to have heard him. “I’ve been trying not to swear around Kyrie and the children.”

“Huh. That’s a thing I used to do when I volunteered at the orphanage. I just couldn’t swear around them. The only time I could do that was back at my cottage or when I knew I was alone. Feels good to just it out.”

“Did you swear at dad?”

“Every single time.”

“Something about him does that.”

\--

Vergil squinted. “I am pretty sure they are talking behind my back.”

“Aw, just let them bond.” Dante shrugged. “So, what are you two going to do now? I have to get my building back from those two women before they wreck it.”

“I hadn’t considered it. I wonder if Carina still has her cottage? Because that may have to be where we would be staying for now.”

“We have spare rooms if you need to spend the night.” Kyrie called out from the kitchen. “Supper’s about ready!”

After supper was over and done with, barring few incidents of Nero and Nico arguing over the last piece of bread, Dante and Vergil threatening to duel each other with spoons. Carina facepalming, trying to wonder what she was going to do about her life back in America and needing to reevaluate her options.

Carina was helping Kyrie wash the dishes. “You know, you should invest in a dishwasher, might make things easier.”

“I guess you’re right. Dish washing *is* hard on my hands… though it costs so much money.”

“Eh, I’ve got some from my writing. Consider it a baby shower gift.”

Kyrie suddenly stared at Carina with wide eyes. “How--?”

“You’re glowing the same way I was when I was pregnant with Nero.”

Kyrie blushed a little bit, trying to hide her belly with the dish towel. “No one seemed to notice.”

“Doesn’t show so much in daylight but at night, woo. Instant night light! Made things easier for me. Worried Nanny a lot though.”

“You mentioned Nanny before. Who is she?”

“A woman who was kind of like my mom. She did her best with me and I wish I could find out what happened to her but it doesn’t seem like she lives here anymore. Probably got exiled at the same time I did.”

“I’m glad you’re alive at the least. Because that means my child will have grandparents-- after all my parents passed on a few years ago.”

“Aw, Kyrie. If you ever need anything, I’ll be here for you and Nero.”

\--

“Let’s make a deal, Nero.” Vergil was back on the couch, pointedly ignoring Dante goofing off with the children.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s never tell your mother about what I did to your arm.”

“Um. Dad.”

“What did you do to Nero’s arm, Vergil?”

“Shit.” Vergil muttered into his fist. “She’s behind me, isn’t she?”

Nero nodded slowly for Carina was standing behind Vergil with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

“His arm appears to be perfectly fine… so. What happened exactly?”

Dante called out. “Vergil cut Nero’s arm off for more power and still lost.”

Vergil was going to kill his brother if Nero wasn’t in the same room with them right now. He would just have to find another means of doing so. Would a pillow suffice in this case?

“Excuse me? Nero, did you grow your arm back and smack the crap out of your father?” Nero nodded slowly at his mom. “Good. As for that, Vergil. I hope you had a good excuse because I am five seconds away from ending your life.”

Vergil held out a finger. “I was a foolish fool who was obsessed with defeating him.” That finger pointed at Dante. “I had not realized that Nero was mine. I came to Fortuna blindly searching for the sword that was embedded in his devil arm.”

Carina looked back at Nero. “Devil arm?”

“I thought it was an infection, just didn’t know that my arm got stuck in devil trigger for few years!”

Sparda Family Brain Cell ™ was something special, Carina sighed mentally returning her glare to Vergil. “You forgot you had sex with me? An entire month’s worth?”

“I really don’t want to hear this, mom. AND I DON’T THINK THE CHILDREN NEED TO HEAR THIS EITHER.” Nero shooed the boys out of the living room to their bedrooms.

Vergil facepalmed before Dante let out another cackle. “That’s the thing about the mating mark, pregnancy is 100% guaranteed in devil trigger. Did you not know that bit, bro?”

“...that was not in the book I read back then.”

“And even then, birth control goes out of the window entirely. One of the reasons why I could never settle down because I wanted to pick the right person. I had two chances and blew it.”

Dante and Lady had tried dating but Lady decided that she was going through way too much at the moment to keep going with the relationship. While they had remained friends, there was still that unspoken tension between them. Then that thing with Lucia was a complete moment of “I didn’t even realize it because I was too depressed over killing my brother”. He wasn’t sure but the last time he saw Lucia, she was still irritated with him for being dense. Trish still looked like his mother way too much for Dante to even entertain the thought even though she was her own person. It was just yeah, no.

Maybe when he finally got his shit together, he would figure it out. Can’t let Vergil one-up him on having a badass kid. Though, it was so goddamn entertaining watching his nephew give his father a well deserved beat-down for all the bullshit they had to endure with the tree and splitting in half.

Now Nero was staring at a wall as if he had gotten hit with heavy plot brick, not unlike the one Dante dropped on him a few months ago.

“Birth control goes out of the window…? KYRIIIIIIIIIIE!?” Nero immediately bolted out of the living room.

One can only guess what that revelation meant for the rest of the people in the living room as they were entertaining the sound of silence.

“I guess that means we are grandparents now, Carina.”

“You still owe me an apology about our son’s arm, Vergil.”

“I’m sorry that I ripped our son’s arm because I had psychological issues because I thought my brother was mother’s favorite and that was why she never looked for me.” Dante squinted at Vergil. “I now know better. I am attempting to make amends for all my previous … “fuck-ups” as Dante puts it.”

“Progress!” Carina exhaled, putting her hands on the back of the couch, leaning over and kissing Vergil on his forehead. “See, sometimes you just have to quit being so emotionally constipated.”

“I suppose that means I get to live a little longer?”

“If only because I want to see what you can do with that tail.”

“Everything.” He smirked back at his wife.

Dante sighed at them. “Get a room, you two. I’m going to sleep.”

\--

Nero was lying on the bed in a state of shock, all four of his hands on his face in utter mortification. Kyrie was shaking him gently saying that he had nothing to worry about as she knew that he would be a good father considering how well they were taking care of the children in the house.

“It’s not that, Kyrie. It’s just. You know, the hickey?”

“Double hearts is a pretty oddly shaped hickey.” She teased him while Nero curled up on the bed, turning bright red and making dying sounds. “Oh, we were just a little frisky!”

“No kidding.” He sighed, perfectly aware of just where the double heart mark was on Kyrie and coughed. “I… I guess that’s also a weird way of finding out that we’re married too. Though I would have liked a typical small wedding.”

“Who says we can’t have one? We have plenty of time before our little one comes.”

“You’re right. I love you.”

“I love you too.”


	4. New Normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still trying to find a way to return to normal after everything that's happened over the years from the nightmares and separation.

Carina wasn’t sure if she should be grateful or confused when Kyrie managed to get everyone organized to help out with getting her cottage back in shape. At the very least, a certain someone was dealing with the weeds with his katana. Weird method of herbiciding but whatever worked.

She was on her cellphone at the moment, trying to get in touch with her roommate. She only hoped the roommate wouldn’t mind packing up her meager belongings and ship it off to Fortuna. Having to deal with questions would only make it sticky considering her backstory was largely “dead child, dead husband, very introverted.” Not to mention the roommate’s innate curiosity and failed attempts at playing matchmaker.

“DIE SCUM.”

Nero shot his father an annoyed glower. Why.

“Must you stand around? Help me with this formidable foe, son.”

Nero was so not using Red Queen to cut the damn grass. Though his father’s logic was a little off the wall but sound. It was just. Dad. Please. No. Stop.

\--

Kyrie was folding the white sheets in the house that the boys could gather up. The place was pretty cozy but a little lonely because it seemed like Carina didn’t put much of an effort in personalizing it in her earlier years, having treated it as no better than a prison.

“Phew. There is a lot of dust!” Nico coughed, shaking the feather duster. “I swear you could get a whole person out of this mess.”

“I’m even surprised he stayed here for an entire month.” Dante shook his head, making his way down the hallway towards the library as the boys ran past with more sheets.

He saw the record player with the record still in place. Seeing the name on the record sent an insane grin on his face. Everyone could use a little performance to cheer them up from this tedious task of cleaning.

(Never mind his own building needed serious help ever since Patty had gotten too busy with life to visit anymore. Dante was simply too lazy to deal with it.)

\--

As soon as the music rolled out of a window, he unconsciously started dancing in tune to the music and stopped once he realized that both Nero and Carina were sharing the same whatthefuck look on their faces.

Vergil cleared his throat. “You saw nothing.” And as an aside under his breath. “I’m going to kill Dante.”

The two just slowly turned around, refusing to even discuss what they had witnessed out of sheer mortification. She ended the call, slipping the phone in a pocket. With both hands free, she buried her face in her hands.

“I’m not sure why your father thought it was a bright idea to cut the grass that way.”

“Beats me. He insisted I help. But that’s just going to make the maintenance annoying on Red Queen.”

Carina made a small pfff sound. “You named your sword that?”

“Well, I, uh, I kind of got the idea from Kyrie’s favorite story. For both the gun and the sword, really.”

“I’m so touched.” She gave her son a small hug. 

He could have easily shrugged it off in embarrassment but he really needed the hug. It was what Nero had always wished for, the comforting touch of a mother’s love. His father on the other hand was still awkward to be around.

“That’s the funny thing. The Order didn’t like me having the gun. Kind of a taboo thing.”

“Having a gun should be common sense because you need to be able to hit from a long range.”

Vergil was about to begin his canned rant of aesthetic before Carina shot him a glare and he muttered a “never mind” before going back to Judgement Cut End the grass. It was clear that the Sparda Family Brain Cell™ was working a little better today.

“So, you actually lived here?”

“Yeah, kind of was a miserable place. In the beginning, Nanny tried so hard to play pretend and say that I was a princess trapped in a tower and everything would get better when I got older. Once I adjusted to my reality after about a year or so, I disabused her of the notion. I knew she meant well but I wasn’t going to get out of this.”

“The fact that you even met dad is surreal.”

“I feel that way too. A small part of me hoped he would either kill me or kidnap me from this place.”

Nero gave his mother a funny look. “Kill you? What?”

“Your idiot father insisted that he was a demon when I tried to kick his ass into taking better care of myself.”

“The fact that you two even fell in love with each other is something of a mystery.”

“I mean, he does have his good qualities but…” Carina let out a sigh. “He still keeps things to himself. Didn’t find out about his family history until the last day.”

“How come you didn’t kick his ass for that?”

“The moment he dropped that bomb on me, I knew I had already lost the argument. No amount of begging or yelling would have changed his mind.”

The surrounding yard was finally cleared of the unwelcome plants, Vergil was breathing heavily. He pointed Yamato at Nero, annoyed with his son for not helping with the yard work.

“Are you going to let me do all the work?! Don’t be like your lazy uncle!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Nero muttered, using four arms to clear up the mess as Carina did a double take.

Well, that certainly explained a few things, she thought to herself. Then she thought back to that one time she had tried to teach Vergil how to knit a sweater for the orphans, saying knitting would help him de-stress. However, he wound up making a sweater with four sleeves, something she could never understand how he managed to do that.

Hindsight was a funny thing.

\--

Everyone finally gathered in the living room. Carina sat on the sad looking couch, taking in the sight. She never had thought to decorate the cottage in the first place because she didn’t really want to personalize her ‘prison’ when she first lived here. She didn’t know what it meant that she was going back to her former prison of her own free will.

That was it, she decided to herself that she was going to break the prison itself. Make it a real home that she could finally come to terms. Even with her shared apartment in New York, she never felt like she belonged.

Funny. She never thought she belonged in Fortuna either. Perhaps, she could force Fortuna to change on a small scale like she was going to do with the cottage. Make it so that single mothers wouldn’t be forced to give up their children. Not that she had any choice when she was drugged out of her mind and not all of the memories had returned yet.

“So, what do you do for a living?” Nico asked, a feather duster still in her hand.

“A writer. But I’m sure everyone knew that. I mean, I wrote articles for websites, magazines, and newspapers whenever I can. Sometimes books.”

“Thought you’d have seen some action if you’re pretty good with a shotgun.”

“Nah. That was just my childhood in which I learned how to shoot. I’m sure the cans are probably still out in the backyard along with uh, few holes in trees. Shooting at things was a stress therapy for me until neighbors complained and Nanny tried to get me into cross stitching.”

Unsurprisingly, those finished projects were full of swearing and Nanny had quickly given up on the idea. Her tiny victory was having Carina not swear in public but of course at home (or in private) was another story.

“There’s still so many things I need to go through here. I don’t know how I’d ever get anything done here on my own. Thank you, everyone.”

“Oh, that reminds me. We should go through your bedroom.” Kyrie spoke up. “I spotted some old clothing.”

“Burn them.”

“Um. I mean, I could reuse them to make clothes for younger children!”

Carina just couldn’t say no to Kyrie’s generous idea. It was better that they get used this way than her just losing her temper and burning all the Fortuna Standard Dress ™. She followed Kyrie into the bedroom with Nico not too far behind them, far too curious for her own good.

“This was all you were ever allowed to wear?” Kyrie said, sounding genuinely shocked.

“Yeah. Had to present an image.”

Nico popped a drawer open and pulled out a small thing of shredded lace. “I think you should get that framed.”

“I’ll do that.” Carina gave a deft shrug. “After all, that was the best wedding night I’ve ever had.”

Nico slowly replaced the lace in the drawer and slid it shut. She cleared her throat, having realized that the lace was not shredded by human hands.

“I should know better than to say things around this family. Jeez.”

Family.

“Nanny…? I never checked her room.” Carina said to herself.

“Oh, is that the room with the locked door?” Kyrie asked Carina, getting a puzzled look in response.

“It shouldn’t be. That’s odd.”

The three moved out into the hallway towards the last room at the end. Carina jiggled on the doorknob, finding it to be locked as Kyrie had said it was.

“This isn’t right.”

“I’ve got the tool just for this job!” Nico whipped out a set of lock picking tools. “No questions, please.”

Nico went to work on the doorknob as Carina frowned to herself, feeling worried. Nanny had been with her for so long and the older woman always had her door unlocked for whenever Carina woke up from a nightmare and needed comfort. This door being locked felt so wrong.

“Freedom!” Nico pushed the door open to an empty room. “Huh? A locked door for an empty room?”

“Nanny…” Carina whispered under her breath. “Her things are all gone. Even the furniture. Why?”

She wandered around the room, trying to make sense of the mystery. She wasn’t sure if Nanny ever gave her real name out or if it was too painful. The only connection was that Carina remembered that Nanny was her mother’s best friend once upon a time. Carina opened the closet, finding it empty too. Not even a note.

That was when Kyrie noticed a floorboard out of place, grabbing a tool from Nico’s hand and went to work on the board. The board went flying, starling Carina as she heard the board crash next to her. Kyrie pulled out two heavy albums out along with a note.

“I think that’s all.”

“She hid them? Of course she had to.” Carina sighed, taking the note from Kyrie.

The note only served to confirm her worst fears, Nanny had left Fortuna for good to try to find her. The note was written in the event of if they were unable to meet again, it was her hope that Carina would find the notes and the albums. Nanny was once an aspiring photographer but she gave up a promising career for Carina when she heard about Carina’s mother being thrown out. To see the same thing happen to Carina was so unforgivable that she stole Nero from the damned uncle and hid him at the orphanage with the intent of him being adopted by people she knew she could trust. They could keep him safe while Nanny tried to find Carina.

“...she took Nero from my uncle. She tried her best to keep Nero safe. Nanny…”

She was on the verge of crying while Kyrie held her, trying to soothe her with soft words. The note had been signed with Nanny’s real name at last. Nanaya Summer. 

Having misheard her name the entire time and never being corrected on it, she must have taken so much pride in Carina. Treated her as she was her own daughter despite being her mother’s best friend.

“It looks like she left those photographs for you.” Nico said, flipping through the albums. “She’s really good!”

“Yeah, she was. She didn’t want to miss a moment of my life, tried to make me smile when I was feeling down.”

“Oh, you can really tell the difference here.” Kyrie remarked. “You’re just putting on a smile but you’re hurting on the inside. You don’t smile like that anymore. Nero does the same thing which is why I can tell.”

“I’m sorry if he’s been a burden.”

“You shouldn’t be! He’s the best part of my life.” Kyrie put her hand on Nico’s mouth before Nico could say something smart-ass.

Nico shook off Kyrie’s hand. “Kyrie isn’t even kidding here. You are like a totally different person with V.”

Carina blinked at the page Nico was pointing to. She hadn’t realized that Nanny took so many pictures during Vergil’s one month stay. It did show how markedly different she was around him. To think of it, there were several pictures where he seemed to be at peace in her presence.

_Only if he had stayed._

She swallowed hard, pushing that bitter thought aside. Why was she even fighting with that resentment? The past was the past.

“Aw, this picture is so cute.”

It was a picture of the two snuggled up on the couch, fast asleep. Her head on his shoulder, an open book on their lap. She remembered that evening distantly, it had been raining all day and she was forced to stay home due to the weather. So he distracted her with one of the books from the library. Carina was also sure that she heard him whisper the three words in her ear as she drifted off to sleep.

“Yeah, I think he barely worked up the courage to tell me that he loved me that night. He was pretty clumsy with his feelings, quoting Blake whenever I managed to leave him speechless.”

Few pages got flipped ahead with Nico and Kyrie both cringing a little bit. The pictures had her looking a little distant, not wanting to stare at the camera, but holding her body protectively. There was a slow progression in the last few pages where she started looking back at the camera as her body changed in the process. Her face was still haunted by a certain kind of sadness.

“Ah, I think I remember Nanny taking the pictures at that time. I asked her why. She said that she couldn’t stop taking them. It feels like an entire lifetime ago with my body looking like this.”

\--

All three of the men were sitting on the couch completely oblivious of the ducklings in the background playing with the dusty sheets. Nero was sandwiched between his father and uncle to make sure they were behaving.

Vergil had finally hunted down Dante for the music troll and tried to judgement cut him but Nero had to tackle his father. There was a lot of angry yelling involved until Dante finally asked about the record existing in the first place which led to Vergil mumbling about it being his personal record that he bought during his stay in Fortuna. There was a small collection on a shelf in the same library along with some books he had acquired.

“I’m surprised you just didn’t outright stay.” Dante remarked, chin on a fist. “Even buying personal stuff and leaving them behind.”

“I almost forgot my original purpose the longer I stayed.” Vergil responded.

“You two.” Nero turned his head to make sure the ducklings weren’t banging into the furniture with the sheets on their heads. “Stop that, guys! That’s dangerous!”

“Either way, Vergil. You have a goal in mind now that we’re done with the tower and tree?”

He scoffed at his younger twin. “I’m not going to do any more stupid things like that.” Some considerable hesitation. “I yet have to figure out what I’m going to do next. I’ve been so focused on power that I never considered what it means to simply live.”

“Then do that. Worry about living, you’ll figure it out. Got all the time in the world now.”

“Correct.”

“Thank god you’re not murdering each other again.” Nero said. “You really sticking around, dad?”

“I do not intend on absconding again.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

The women returned to the living room with Nico dropping the albums on the coffee table in front of the men who stared at her in confusion. “Light reading material!”

Carina and Kyrie walked past everyone into the kitchen, presumably to discuss the lunch menu since they spent so much time on cleaning the house. Nero made a questioning noise before picking up one of the albums and popping it open. Seeing pictures of his parents left him with some unexpected feelings.

It was comforting to know that his father was capable of showing feelings. Vergil looked away, furiously blushing remembering the memories of that day. Dante on the other hand was stunned, having actual physical proof of his brother behaving in a human manner. Nero flipped to the last few pages only just stopping before the last page.

There was a small choked sound coming from Vergil as he slowly took the album from Nero, closing it. It went without saying that seeing the last few pictures had deeply wounded him with guilt. He returned the album to the coffee table, still silent as ever. The next following several minutes were full of awkward silence as neither Dante or Nero had the words to comfort the stoic man.

Nico clapped her hands together. “Cheer up! There’s always time to make Nero a big brother!”

Dante fell off the couch laughing as Nero stood straight up, jabbing a finger in Nico’s face. He barely had a chance to get any angry remarks out when Nico pointed straight past Nero’s face. Vergil appeared to be slowly turning red, seriously considering the thought.

“Well, that is… not a bad idea.”

Nero sighed, facepalming. “Sure, just let me pick up on a book about being an older brother.”

Dante looked at Nero. “That might be for the best, you don’t want Vergil’s advice. He stabs a lot.”

“You’re forgetting that I stabbed you too.” Nero shot back.

“That incident made me realize Vergil had sex.”

Both Vergil and Nero glared at Dante for that remark alone with Nico laughing loudly. Kyrie came back in the room with a questioning look on her face. Everyone quickly settled back down with Nico still snickering.

“We’re doing sandwiches for lunch, is that okay with everyone?”

\--

Roughly a week later, the cottage was looking better with new appliances in place and some fresh furnishing but keeping some of the original. Neither of them had any idea what to do with the spare room that was once Nanny’s. So for now, they decided that they would revisit the spare room idea for later. It was still challenging getting back into the comfortable pattern that they once had so many years ago. The time apart had changed both of them and it was unclear if it was for the better or not.

They were both damaged, each with their own trauma of the hell they went through. Despite the scars that they both borne on the inside, Carina still always tried to comfort Vergil as she always had done in the past. Even held him through the occasional nightmares that had him panicking, trying to shed his clothing in his sleep as if he was trying to break a blackened hell armor off. Nevermind that his familiars had given up their lives to ease Vergil’s trauma, there were pieces that still remained. Such nightmares do not go away so easily. 

She knew all about nightmares all too well, having had those ethereal dreams that were her memories trying to break through the layers of hypnotism and previous experiments. Last night was particularly bad when she found Vergil on the bedroom floor curled up in partial SDT. She had to use soft words to coax him awake to try to get him to remember where he was. Asked him if he wanted to talk about the nightmare so it would go away. All she could get out of him was that he was glad she was still here. Scared that Mundus had killed her right before his eyes before trapping him in the black armor.

It was why he had kept her a closely guarded secret in his heart to the point he forcibly suppressed it so Mundus could never rip the secret out. He allowed Mundus to think it was all about his childhood trauma, as long as she was never touched. How wrong he had been when he learned that she had been trapped in a different nightmare of her own. And yet, here she was kneeling at his side, trying to calm him. She didn’t need to do that but that was just how she was.

The following afternoon, Vergil was doing some mediation in the backyard when Dante, Nero, and Nico had dropped by with some books. Carina invited them in for some lemonade and sugar cookies.

“As ever, I seem to be playing the perfect hostess again.”

“These cookies are really tasty!” Nico tried to grab a fourth, trying to dodge Nero swatting her hand away. “Did you make them?”

“Vergil did.”

“He’s more talented than I thought.”

“Kind of left the kitchen a mess though. Stress baking.” Carina said, shaking her head. “Dante, I’ve got a question for you.”

“Fire away.”

“What the hell happened on Mallet Island?”

Dante almost spewed his drink out but luckily, Nico and Nero were on the other side, staring at Dante. They only had a rough idea of how bad things went down but didn’t know the details. Dante didn’t even want to talk about this but it seemed that he had little choice in the matter.

“It was pretty bad. I mean, I thought it was just another job. You guys know Trish, right?” Dante caught the questioning look on Carina’s face. “Ah, well, Trish showed up at my office one day and threw a motorcycle at my head.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Nero muttered, stealing another cookie.

“Anyways, I’m stunned by Trish’s resemblance to my mom and I take off for the island that she told me about. The island had an old castle and some real interesting supernatural elements to it. In hindsight, I should’ve realized that the barrier between the real world and hell was extremely thin there. Probably where Mundus was able to command his army from.”

“Vergil’s mentioned that name. Said it was why he had to leave me behind.”

“Yeah, that guy was a real monster.” Dante lowered his eyes and placed the glass back on the table. “He trapped Vergil in that black knight armor.”

That made sense to Nero now. He was confused at the time regarding V’s reaction to the Angelos, barely concealed fury with a sudden quote. He went hard on the armors and personally slit their throats with the cane, exerting himself in the process. Never saw such a display of extreme rage before.

“How did Vergil end up that way?”

“Shit. I gotta start at the beginning too? Well, you know, there was this tower called Temen Ni Gru…” Dante groaned. “Something something about getting more power to finish Mundus off personally. As my time at the Mallet Island indicated, that didn’t turn out so well for him. I thought I killed my brother but… I don’t know what happened to him after that.”

“About that.” Nico snorted. “I was going through some more of The Order’s research. You know the Bianco Angelos? They used fragments of black armor that washed up on the island along with Yamato.”

Dante and Nero looked at each other and did a dual facepalm. 

“Does anyone ever think to ask the important questions around here? I swear.” Nico rolled her eyes and stole another cookie.

Carina let out a slow exhale, processing all the information. She felt like she had a better grasp on things. “So, is Mundus dead or gone for good?”

“For the most part, yeah. If he tried to come back, he wouldn’t be able to anyway considering I’m much stronger since Mallet Island.”

“Also! Seeing your albums reminded me to make duplicates.” Nico brought it out, slamming it on the table. “I think you’ll be interested in what you missed out on a few months ago.”

“Man, Nico, I don’t think you should show my mom such scary things.”

“Nero, I literally sleep next to your father.” Carina rolled her eyes. “I can handle it.”

Nero squinted at his mom and grudgingly conceded the point to her. She did have the patience of a saint and the willpower to put up with his dad and his bullshit. Carina sat next to Dante, opening the album. She made some noises about having seen some of those demons previously. Not the same ones at the Order headquarters but still…

They failed to hear Vergil walk into the dining room with a puzzled expression on his face as Carina spoke up.

“Huh.” She pointed to a picture of a dark haired man wearing all black, taking a nap with the cane. “Who’s this hot goth guy? I feel like I know him.”

“Pff. I never thought to ask more about that guy.” Dante muttered into his fist.

“I would totally bang him.”

“Moooooooom.” Nero groaned, pointing to Vergil who was standing behind Carina, having turned furiously red. “You already did.”

“Hi, Vergil.” Carina didn’t even bother to look up. “So. That is your human heart.”

“You could say that…” he could barely speak. “Whose idea was it for this album.”

Nico waved to Vergil with a grin on her face. “Yo, V! Great cookies by the way!”

“Thanks?”

More pages flipped as Carina came across a particular picture of a very tall tree-like blue demon that made her face wrinkle. “Alright, who’s this asshole? I feel like I need to shoot him.”

No one dared to speak while Vergil slowly buried his face in his hands. “That would be my other half, wife.”

“God, what did you do? You said something about splitting yourself in half earlier? Is that the result?”

“Yes. It was a foolish mistake. Are we done with embarrassing me?”

Dante shrugged. “Sorry about that, bro. You doing okay?”

Vergil shot him a rather blank look, there were dark circles under his eyes again. Though his twin wasn’t sure if they ever left in the first place.

“I am fine.”

“Didn’t you say you would be back for this?” Nero pulled out the familiar brown book, handing it over to his father. “It was uh, enlightening.”

“Hm. I didn’t expect to get it back this soon. Thank you.”

Carina had a puzzled look on her face regarding the book and Nero stammered for a bit before explaining that it was a book that V always carried with him. Didn’t realize that it was one of Vergil’s few childhood possessions that survived the fire. She asked if there was anything else that survived the incident to which Dante and Vergil coughed awkwardly, not wanting to remember that painting. Mostly because their father had decided on a rather unusual hairstyle that day and the twins were fighting each other with spare painting oil. It was a wonder the painting ever got finished in the first place.

“Maybe I should just retrieve it and store it safely.” Vergil said, still remembering the day. “I mean, our parents did spend a considerable amount of money on it.”

“And we were brats at that time.”

“That was mostly you, Dante.”

“It’s okay if you guys want to go ahead and salvage things.” Carina said. “I’ll still be here. No evil research scientists are going to kidnap me again.”

“Am I that obvious?”

“A bit, yeah. I’ve got a shotgun, so I should be fine.”

Vergil just sighed, having lost the argument. “Let’s make haste, brother. I would not want to lose the rest of the day to this errand.”

“I’ll be going with them to keep them behaving, Mom. Nico, will you let Kyrie know where I’ll be?”

“Sure.” Nico waved them off. “Say, did you ever really have an escape plan from here?”

“There was a couple with a young son and a little baby girl. They somewhat operated a secret network of being able to help out mothers who were in need of assistance but a such thing wasn’t always easy in the first place because of pride and society shaming people. They approached me and offered me a way to get out of the city. I should’ve taken it at the time but I didn’t. I was still holding Vergil to his promise because I still believed in him.”

“So, why didn’t you go back when you had the chance?”

“Armed guards at the cottage prevented me from leaving. I couldn’t return to my volunteering jobs at the library or the orphanage. Uncle made up a story that I was suffering from a long illness and I should not be out in public lest I start a pandemic.” She scoffed, stuffing a cookie in her mouth. “It’s not like people in the streets were going to suddenly fall pregnant from seeing my belly.”

Nico shuddered at the thought. “Yeah, that’s just pretty bad. How’s the gun holding up for you?”

“Fucking fantastic. Thanks for the upgrade. Shoots so much better now. Pissed off Vergil when he heard me fire it.”

“As long as it works okay. You know, the demons were saying ‘Kill the Queen’... right?”

“Mm, still no idea what’s that about.”

“So, I guess no one told you that V is the king of Hell now?”

“The what of what now?!”

“Yeeeeeeah, you’re going to have a long conversation with him about that.”

“No shit.” Carina put her face in her hands. “How does the hell does one become the king of hell?”

“Well, I’m going to have to explain the best I can.”

\--

The twins weren’t expecting to be back at the house on the outskirts of Redgrave so soon. Nero realized that it was the same place from the illusion when he had dragged V to the final confrontation with Urizen. The only difference this time around was that the house was ruined and the ground had barely settled back into place after the tree had fallen. He was cautiously watching his relatives shift through the mess, trying to decide what they could salvage and sharing memories of their childhood. There were so much that Nero didn’t even know about his own family and he supposed that it was probably a good thing that he came along.

“That the painting?” He pointed over to the somewhat damaged painting on the wall.

“We’ll have to get it cleaned up and restored. I’m not sure if your mother would be comfortable with it in the cottage.”

“Probably a good thing that you didn’t see how silly … your grandpa looks in the painting.”

Nero had one of his patented “why me” look on his face. “All I ever knew about Sparda was the cult back in Fortuna. How much did they get it wrong?”

Dante gave out a chuckle. “I don’t even know where to start, kid.”

“He was a little unusual. We probably didn’t have a very normal childhood what with sword lessons at a considerable early age. Our swords gifted to us around the same time despite our mother trying so hard to do damage control.”

“She really tried. I miss her.”

“So do I.”

“What was she like?” Nero asked, shifting a broken furniture to the side.

“Kind. Patient. She was the picture of happiness even when things got rough after father disappeared.”

“Sparda disappeared? How?” Nero asked but only got a shrug from Dante and Vergil didn’t seem to have the answers either.

“We don’t know. I tried to find out years later but it seems that he was just here one day, gone the next.”

“I assumed that he got tired of us and left.” Dante scoffed. “Wasn’t too interested in looking for him after that.”

“That’s a stupid assertion. It was also one of the reasons why I came to Fortuna. I thought maybe the cult had answers.”

“You may not be wrong about that.” Nero sighed. “There was someone in the Order whose specialty was researching Sparda.”

\--

“Damn.” Carina said, a little stunned at getting a complete rundown. “That’s quite something.”

“Of course, most of this is second hand stuff.” Nico shrugged. “The boys are not so great at talking. Well, except for Nero. He’s good at yelling.”

“Vergil takes a little too long to open up sometimes. I wonder if he’s just afraid of me.”

“Heck, you’re a badass mom with a shotgun. He’s totally afraid. Back then, I’d catch him looking at Nero and talking to himself about it not being possible.”

“I swear my husband is an idiot.”

\--

The average height, slim looking person of interminable age was sitting outside at a park enjoying the fresh air. Nero never could figure out how old Sam the Researcher was supposed to be and he had asked them once only getting a weird answer in reply saying that they had been subjected to one of Agatha’s many experiments. The researcher took a good look at the twins with Nero and mumbled out a “oh no”.

“So, you’re Sammy?” Dante said. “Hi! I’m Dante and he’s Vergil.”

“Your parents were clearly a fan of the Divine Comedy.” Sam facepalmed. “Nero, is there any reason for this visit?”

“You’re the expert on Sparda, aren’t you?”

“Not as good as I thought I was, I’m afraid. I was trapped with too many assignments from that cursed boss to be able to track Sparda full-time. If I had escaped at the right moment, things would be much different now.”

Not to mention that Sam still never felt right about being unable to stop the victim of Agatha’s insane experiment decades ago. They had strongly suspected Nero was the woman’s child during that time Sam was forced to witness the experiment, noticing how strong their bond were. It was something they had never been able to tell Nero about long after they quit the organization just before everything got truly batshit insane.

“Damn.” Dante sighed. “Still got your papers?”

“Always.” Sam opened their coat to reveal what seemed to be infinite amounts of pockets lining the coat with numerous notebooks, folders, and one drinking flask. “When Agatha wasn’t a monster, she had some brilliant ideas. I hated her.”

“We need to get these things back to the cottage anyway.” Vergil said. “Then we can probably go through the papers. If I had met you earlier, I’d have gotten some answers sooner.”

“You were actually in Fortuna and I never met you?” Sam stared at the older twin. “How is that even possible.”

“I may have been detained in the cottage for some time.” He answered with a slight blush.

This was when Sam took a good hard look at Vergil then back at Nero then back at Vergil and blinked. A notebook was pulled out and the researcher began writing furiously.

“This answers all my theories and questions I never wanted answered.”

“Sam…” Nero began. “Please don’t write about my parents’ sex lives!”

“I DON’T WANT TO.”

Dante was chuckling. “This never gets old.”

The researcher was complaining about needing a painkiller for the impending headache and they briefly wondered what would have happened if they chose to ignore Agatha’s assignments and stuck by Sparda for as long as possible. Ah, such possibilities would have been interesting and horrifying to imagine about. Too bad that was a pipe dream. This was the reality right now, having to deal with Sparda’s children and one grandson. Maybe they could finally make amends.


	5. Controlled Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never ask Lady and Trish to throw a baby shower because they don't even know what one is in the first place.

“How did you manage to keep him from escaping the first time around?”

Carina glanced over at Nico. “Hm? Oh. He panicked a lot in the morning after. Was getting ready to leave when I managed to coax him back just by saying his name.”

“Jeez, you must have more power than him.”

“It probably wore off after a few times I did that.”

“I bet you ten bucks it didn’t.”

“Okay, you’re on, Nico.” Carina took a deep breath, leaning back in the chair and let out the most sultry sounding moan, “Vergil?”

What happened in the next five minutes was a surprise. The door nearly blasted open, the hinges shaking as Vergil ran through the cottage into the dining room in a blind panic. He was breathing heavily, all wild-eyed and confused, his hair a mess.

“What is it, wife? Are you hurt? Do I need to call the doctor?”

Sam, Dante, and Nero stepped inside the cottage without a word five minutes later, clearly not expecting Vergil to randomly freak out and blast out of their sight.

“Holy shit.” Nico closed her mouth. “Now, where’s my ten bucks?”

Carina sighed and slammed the money on the table in front of Nico. Vergil looked around the room, still unsure as to what happened. Once it finally dawned on him and then he leaned over Carina, nearly scowling into her ear.

“Tonight.”

“‘Yes, dear.” She replied with a tender, but yet knowing smile.

Vergil groaned and collapsed on the couch, seemingly unconscious. Did the man just use up all his energy? Was he even still alive? Dante poked at Vergil’s leg, barely getting a swat in response.

“You broke him. What did you do?”

Nico shook her head. “It was epic. Should’ve heard her.”

“I don’t want to know.” Nero responded. “I’ve had enough trauma for a lifetime already.”

“Man driven to unconscious by sudden lust…” Sam mumbled as they wrote into the notebook.

“Sam!”

“Eh? What?” Sam looked at Nero. “Oh, right. I think we may have to put that off for now. I think he’s in a coma right now. Well, I can’t be sure, since I’m a researcher, not a doctor.”

“He’ll be fine shortly.” Dante shrugged. “He hasn’t been sleeping at all that well, has he?”

“Nope.” Carina sighed. “Nightmares.”

It took Sam the Researcher entirely too long to figure why Nico looked familiar to them. Then it finally clicked.

“Oh christ.”

Everyone looked at Sam with a puzzled expression. Sam pulled out the flask and completely drained it on the spot, replacing it in the coat.

“Hey, what was that about?”

“Nothing. You just happen to … resemble one of the greatest terrors of my past.”

Nico turned to Nero, pointing at Sam. “Where did you actually find this person?”

“Uh, former Order Researcher.”

“...so.” Nico returned her attention to Sam. “You knew my asshole daddy?”

Sam completely petrified in horror.

“Great, another person broken.” Dante groaned. “We’re not going to get anything done at this rate. Today is looking to be a bit of a wash.”

“That’s rich, coming from the one who’s still trying to avoid his office.” Nero took a seat at the table, glaring at the empty plate.

“I’d rather not be around in case the gals show up. Or Patty. I still haven’t figured out how to apologize to her for you know, all that.”

“You’re still going to have to go back there sooner or later.” Nero rolled his eyes. “I’m not letting you freeload off the couch anymore.”

“But the kids like me!”

“No buts. Grow up, Dante.”

“Crap.” Dante groaned, clearly not looking towards the confrontation back at his office but there was no way to get around that.

Nero was already stressing out over Kyrie and the surprise baby. Not to mention, the idea of intruding on his brother and his wife was a terrible idea because they were still going through an adjustment period after being apart for so long. His brother having nightmares shouldn’t even be a surprise, the older twin tended to avoid sleep as long as he could.

There was a time when this wasn’t a problem but that was before their childhood blew up. He used to annoy his twin at nighttime with random conversations when they should have been sleeping. How they would wake up early in the morning to watch cartoons on television before their parents got up.

“Alright, I’ll go back to the office. Call me if you guys need me, okay?”

After Dante left the cottage, Nero put his face on the table and groaned loudly. 

“Nero?”

“Expecting a baby is different from dealing with older kids. I don’t know if I’ve even got this.”

“You’ve got this.” Carina sighed, patting her son’s head. “You’re considerably better prepared than your father was.”

“Hard to argue with that.”

“Besides, you and Kyrie have a support system which is something I never had in the first place. Nanny and I spent so much time trying to figure out various escape plans and having to adjust them every time something happened.”

Sam finally reanimated during this time, looking at Carina. “Wait. Don’t I know you?”

Carina looked back at the researcher. “...weren’t you there with that horrible woman?”

“What,” said Nero. “Wait a minute, Sam, you’ve known this entire time?”

“Yes, I was there that night. Agatha the evil wicked boss of research department no 5 declared you too human in spite of your Sparda bloodline but found your mother very interesting.”

Both mother and son said, “What?”

“Chimera.” Sam went into a long-winded explanation of what a chimera meant in human women and such. “...and when Dick took Nero from you--”

“Yeah, the arms.” Carina said. “That explains it, I guess. Can’t really do them at will anyway, not like Nero can anyway.”

“I figure that it’s kind of an emotional trigger but that remains to be seen.”

“Sam, why didn’t you stop this?”

“Nero, believe me. I tried. I had considered going to Sanctus but I had heard a rumor that he poisoned his predecessor. Thought it was wise to find alternative means then I lost track of your mother after Agatha had her moved. Then the evil boss dropped over from a heart attack and the entire rescue attempt was a dismal failure.”

“Lemonade?”

Sam sighed. “I suppose I could go for that. I drank all my alcohol.”

“I don’t blame you.” Nico shrugged, redirecting her attention to Nero. “Look, you absolutely have nothing to worry about. Auntie Nico’s here!”

“Yeah right, that’s WHAT I’m worried about.”

\--

Dante opened the window on the second floor in order to get back into his office because he didn’t want to risk being seen at the front door with his key. Thankfully, the office was still dark as he closed the window behind himself once he cleared it.

Wait a second.

The bed was neatly made but yet there was a large absence of frilly pink things and animal plushies and other girly things. He supposed that Patty might have stopped by and cleaned up the office because he could tell it was her by her cleaning methods.

He felt guilty about having missed out on the birthday party, just that he originally didn’t want to attend because hanging out with too many people was overwhelming even for an extrovert like him. Well, extrovert compared to his brother’s extreme introvertness. There were times he didn’t mind being alone but even that could drive him out of his mind most days.

The bed was tempting him with a nap though. Carrying all that crap back to the cottage was reminding him that he was getting up in his years. Still in his prime though, just that he couldn’t let his nephew outdo him or he would never hear the end of it from the ladies.

At least the ladies weren’t back yet-- then the lights turned on. Nevermind, Dante thought to himself, partially sulking.

“Looks like Patty was here again.” Trish said.

“Dante still hiding from us?”

“He’s going to have to show up sooner or later.”

“That’s just like him to avoid everything.”

“And here I was hoping for a nap…” Dante grumbled softly, hand on his face.

“Look who’s back from hell.” Lady shook a finger at Dante. “Seriously? Avoiding us?”

“I wanted a little vacation from the office for a while. Sort family issues out.”

“Sorted out yet? Because Lady and I were thinking of throwing Nero and Kyrie a baby shower party.”

Dante paused. Wait, who told them-- Nico. Okay, then. This was only going to end in complete anarchy but he wouldn’t miss the party.

“And where is this baby shower taking place?”

“Here. We’ll just deal with details.”

Dante doubted that either of the ladies had ever been to a baby shower party for a very good reason. It was not like that was a regular occurence with demon hunting. He could only hope Nero didn’t have a stroke on the spot from the party.

“Just as long as you deal with the clean-up afterwards. I don’t really care.”

The front door open again, revealing both Morrison and Patty. Dante nearly stumbled on the stairs, trying to get to his desk. It was almost as if his day couldn’t get any worse.

“Nice to see you again.”

“Hello, Morrison.”

“DANTE! You missed my birthday party… but Morrison let me know that you were dealing with a serious problem. I’m just glad you aren’t dead. If you had to miss my birthday for a reason like that, it’s completely okay.”

“Thanks, Patty. But it’s not fair to you.”

“I think the threat of the world ending is a bigger issue than you missing my birthday. Anyways, what’s this I hear about a baby shower?”

Lady and Trish only had wide grins on their faces as Dante stumbled to his desk, collapsing in his chair. Ah, how much his butt had missed this chair-- what the. Did the chair cushion get replaced at some point? That was it, he was going to have to stop hiding from his office from now on.

“Yeah, my nephew is expecting a baby.”

“You have a nephew?”

“...I also have a twin brother.”

“YOU’RE A TWIN? Holy shit.”

“Rest assured, my twin is nothing like me.”

“Oh, thank god.” Lady rolled her eyes. “As if the world needs two of you.”

Dante gave Lady a wounded expression. “And here, I thought you -- “ and cut that sentence off immediately. It just didn’t feel right to tease her about the unspoken thing between them.

Trish had picked up on the slight tension and poked Lady on the shoulder. “Supplies. Let’s go, Patty!”

“Right…” Patty followed after the other two ladies.

“So, you’re back for good?” Morrison asked Dante. “The ladies have been bringing in some good money. You’re no longer behind on your bills.”

“That’s great. Demons have no chance with them around.”

“So, where were you exactly?”

“Literally hell with my brother. Did you even know that my brother was V this entire time?”

“V? Huh. That’s interesting. Don’t think I’d ever have noticed. I didn’t ask too many questions after he mugged someone for cash.”

“Vergil actually mugged someone?” Dante groaned. “I need to talk to that guy…”

\--

“Um, Nero, I have some good and bad news for you.” Nico said after she got off the phone.

“What.”

“Good news, you and Kyrie have a baby shower party tonight!”

“Oh, well, that’s terrific. What’s the bad news?”

“Lady and Trish are throwing it.”

Nero facepalmed with both hands.

“Even better news, alcohol!”

“Are you freaking kidding me? Kyrie can’t have any!”

“Not for Kyrie, but for the rest of us!”

“Maybe I can finally refill my flask…” Sam mumbled, shaking their empty flask.

\--

Several hours later at the office, Dante was vaguely impressed with the attempts at decorating the place. Sadly, the interesting pictures of women were covered with ducks so he was stuck staring at a picture of a duck’s face on a bikini clad woman. Maybe staying in Hell was a better idea. Gold colored christmas garlands were decorating the varying heads of slain demons on the walls. Dante almost missed Patty’s frilly pink attempts but decided alcohol would only make everything look better.

There were several card tables scattered around the office along with some rough ideas of party games (a stack of paper and markers). At least there was no “pin the diaper on a baby” or whatever weird nonsense. Three of the card tables were pushed together on one wall for a makeshift bar with varying alcohol bottles and red solo cups. Low effort, much?

The guests of honor hadn’t arrived yet so there was plenty of time to poke at the jukebox. What was an appropriate music to play at the shower? He didn’t know and suspected the ladies didn’t know either. Whatever came out of the jukebox, everyone would have to deal with. Dante would just have to dodge things thrown at his head with trickster style.

“This is a pathetic excuse of a party.”

“Hello, Vergil.”

Vergil had clearly recovered from going unconscious a few hours ago and was staring at the office with a fairly confused expression on his face. He also didn’t know what kind of a party this was supposed to be either, having much less exposure to humans than his twin did.

“...Carina told us we had a party to attend. I do not understand … all of this.”

“I don’t think anyone does either. Sleep well?”

“Yes and no. Dreams tortured me.”

“Pardon? Nightmares?”

“I didn’t say they were nightmares.” He sat on a stool, looking somewhat disconcerted.

“Damn. I think I overdressed.” 

Carina looked around the building with an extremely puzzled look on her face. As someone who actually had attended baby showers in the past, this was definitely NOT how to throw one. She also loudly questioned herself why she was even dressed up nicely in the first place, feeling a little embarrassed. Should’ve stuck to her usual tunic and leggings but instead she chose a wine colored off the shoulder shirt paired with a black pencil skirt. At least she had the sense to wear some flats rather than heels in case if she needed to run away.

“You look fine as you are.”

“Ever the poet.” Dante snorted at his twin. “Speaking of poetry.”

Vergil shot Dante a side glance. “What.”

“While you were in your goth phase, did you actually mug someone for money?”

“I may have.”

“Please don’t tell me that you managed to steal the outfit too.” Carina took the other stool next to her husband.

“That… was a different person.”

Both Dante and Carina stared at Vergil in disbelief with a flat “what”.

“When I split myself, my human half was naked. Griffon helped me retrieve clothing.”

Carina rolled her eyes to the ceiling, complaining under her breath that she shouldn’t have been so surprised. The glare from her husband didn’t even silence her as she returned it with a smirk.

“I order you to cease and desist with your thoughts.”

\--

Nero only groaned in disbelief in the van with Kyrie by his side. He had long since given up on the idea of yelling at Nico for blabbing about the baby. He would just have to put up with whatever madness Lady and Trish were up to.

“Kyrie, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t be! It’s a chance for me to meet everyone else.”

“Yeah, but uh, you sure?”

“Please. I’m the girl who beat up the bullies for you. I’ve got this, baby.”

“Alright…”

Nico parked the van outside of the office. “Ready, guys?”

\--

The minute Nero walked into the building, he stared at the decoration unable to say anything coherent. He had a feeling that it was going to go downhill from here. At least his parents were here and no one was dying yet judging by Dante who was still breathing. Trish was at the makeshift bar, mixing drinks.

“Is … this really a baby shower or just an excuse for a party?”

“It’s both.” Lady said. “Trish and I didn’t even bother looking up stuff and just went with our instincts.”

He didn’t have any words for that.

“Ginger ale okay for you?” Trish asked Kyrie.

“Certainly! Thank you.”

Well, thank god they had the sense to get some non-alcoholic drinks, Nero thought. Nico went over the bar and asked for the hardest drink Trish had. Was it for her? Nah.

Nico shoved a cup of … something in Nero’s hand. “Drink up!”

“Is this going to make my liver bleed?” Nero eyed Nico suspiciously.

“We won’t know until you drink it. You’ll end up healing from it anyway.”

The ducklings had scrambled upstairs to watch cartoons in the loft away from the party. Sam the Researcher was refilling their flask at the bar, humming a merry tune. Nero was still regarding his drink with some deep suspicion as Trish dished out drinks to everyone else. Lady clapped her hands loudly.

“Everyone! We’re going to start this off with a drinking game!”

“The best kind.” Nico grinned at Nero who had a oh-shit look on his face.

“I will not participate in this foolishness.” Vergil responded in spite of him holding a cup containing whatever mystery alcohol.

He was about to put it down before Dante whistled. “Afraid to lose?”

“I mean, it’s only a harmless game.” Kyrie shrugged. “So it’s okay.”

Vergil squinted at Dante. “I will not lose.”

“I think I’ll need an entire bottle of wine for this.”

Everyone looked at Carina and Trish carefully handed her a bottle.

“Just in case.”

“I want to start this!” Nico grinned. “So, this objective of the game is “I’ve never…” and if you’ve actually done something, one sip!”

“That’s it?” Vergil said. “Easy enough.”

“Okay, so here goes… I’ve never tried to kill a family member.”

Nero groaned. “Just so you know, I didn’t know Dante was even related to me when I stabbed him with his sword…”

“It counts, drink up!”

The Sparda men each took a sip of their drinks, Vergil seemed to feel a little fuzzy. Oh wow, everything looked so pretty. Why did he feel so nice like this?

“Vergil and I’ve always tried to kill each other, for like, forever.” Dante shrugged. “On the other hand, Nero doing that to me was how I figured out that he was Vergil’s. Vergil did the same thing to me decades ago. Well, and that Yamato is the best paternity test ever.”

Lady took a sip, trying not to dwell on the memory of the time she DID actually kill her father years ago. “My turn! I’ve never had kids.”

Now it was the parents who took a sip. Vergil seemed to be having some considerable trouble trying to get the sip in, alcohol tipping out of the cup onto the floor. The first sip had already gotten him fairly woozy.

Dante snorted. “Do adopted children count?”

“Yes.”

“Aw, hell. I guess I’ll drink to that. Adopted kids are the best.”

“I’ve never had daddy issues.” Kyrie said.

Just about everyone but Kyrie took a sip. At this point, Vergil was just watching the alcohol slip away from him.

“Oh, jeez. We all need help.” Nico laughed. “Daddy issues, that’s great. Damn. We’re all messed up.”

“Technically, speaking. My asshole uncle was supposed to be the parental figure… but he fucked up on that count.” Carina muttered.

Sam shook their head. “I’ve never been stabbed.”

Everyone but Nico, Kyrie, and Carina took a sip. Vergil had kind of slid off his seat onto the floor, curling up around the empty cup having accidentally fed the rest of the alcohol to the floor.

“And Vergil’s out.” Dante said. “Damn, I can’t believe he’s a lightweight. And we’re supposed to be twins.”

“Hey, we never drank.” Carina pointed out. “No vices of any kind were allowed at my cottage.”

“Yet, Nero exists.” Nero tried to throw an empty cup at Nico but his aim was slightly off and the cup bounced off the wall. Carina made a small pff sound, looking at her cup.

“I’m gonna check on the kids.” Nero muttered as he went up to the second floor.

“Don’t use them as an excuse to quit the game!” Nico yelled after him. “You’re not smashed yet!”

“Probably won’t be if he inherited my tolerance … and not his father’s.”

“Damn it.”

“Honestly, if I had a sip every time I got stabbed in my life, I still wouldn’t be drunk. And believe me, I’ve been stabbed enough times to need fifty pairs of hands to count. Or, well, more.” Dante shrugged. “Getting stabbed is the story of my life ranging from annoyed relatives to angry black cats who spike me on sight.”

“I want Shadow baaaack.” Vergil groaned from the floor. “Need warm kitty cuddles.”

“Alrighty! I’ve never had devil trigger sex!” Nico declared. “Question popped in my head.”

Sam the Researcher stared at Nico in disbelief. Carina broke open the wine bottle and drained the entire contents while Kyrie coughed and took a sip. Everyone stared at Carina.

“...what.” She responded. “That’s why I asked for the wine bottle because I knew this question was going to come up at some point.”

“Uh, how was that?” Lady asked. “Because I’ve only cuddled with Dante when he changed. He’s awfully all warm and cozy on cold winter nights. I kind of miss that.”

“Intense. That’s all I can say.”

Dante only had an unreadable expression on his face, looking at Lady. “You never asked.”

“Didn’t occur to me.”

“Cowards.” Vergil muttered from the floor. “There’s nothing to it. Just get over yourselves and get back together. You two are radiating tension every time you’re in the same room. I already sensed it years ago in the tower and I EVEN FELT IT IN THE TREE.”

“Go home, you’re drunk.” Dante tossed that at his twin.

“I would love to, but the gravity seems to have restrained me for the moment.”

Nero returned to the party. “What did I miss?”

“A very awkward conversation.” Sam answered. “And something that I refuse to write about because I don’t even want to know the details.”

“...that’s not saying much.”

“DT Sex.” Trish saying it as a matter-of-factly had Nero stumbling over his feet, dying of embarrassment.

“Great, now both of them are on the floor almost dead.” Nico said to Trish who only smiled in response.

Nero shot back up. “NO MORE PERSONAL QUESTIONS.”

A hand slowly snaked up Nero’s back and just for that one moment, Nero had a feeling of existential dread before realizing that it was his father trying to get back up off the floor. He was not expecting to be pulled into a very emotional embrace with his father bawling about how his baby was having a baby.

“Dad…?”

“Son, I should have been a better parent. I’m so sorry for everything I did wrong…”

“It’s fine…” Nero was stuck in the firm embrace. “I’m still here.”

Vergil was a little wobbly, still. “I think the world needs to know that you are my baby.”

“Dad, what…”

There was a ‘SON’ written in black marker ink on Nero’s forehead. Where the hell did Vergil get a marker and how was he so quick while still drunk? Nero was free from the embrace, trying to find a mirror all “What the hell did he write on me?!”

Vergil was now standing in front of Carina, trying to ponder. “I think I already wrote on you.”

“What--”

“When we were kids and always fighting over things.” Dante shrugged. “He had a habit of writing his name on everything, even his sword. I guess in a manner of speaking, the mark on your back is that.”

“VERGIL!” Carina jumped off her seat, trying to grab him but he was too fast for her. “Where--”

Nero thought hard about that, remembering a moment years ago when he was a confused teenager with Yamato, finding a name in a child’s handwriting on the space between the hilt and the blade. He hadn’t understood it then but in hindsight… everything made sense now.

“Wow.” Trish felt something on her forehead. “What did he write on me?”

“Not Mommy.” Nico giggled. “Oh, what did I get?”

“Applejack? I thought that’s an alcoholic drink?”

“It is! It’s also a pony!”

“Vergil watches “My Little Pony”????” Dante asked out loud. “When did he find the time to do that?”

“Ooh! What did I get?” Kyrie giggled.

“Son’s Wife.” Nico pointed out. “I guess he brain deaded on that.”

“...what did I get?” Lady said, tapping on her forehead before her face suddenly went blank at Dante’s forehead.

“Pew-Pew. Lady, why the face?”

“Virgin.”

“VERGIL, THAT’S A GODDAMN DIRTY LIE.” Dante yelled at his older twin. “I HAVE PLENTY OF EXPERIENCE.”

“More like experience avoiding commitment!” Vergil shouted from somewhere in the office. “Judgement Write End.”

“What.” Nero said in response to that.

Sam the Researcher appeared to have a “SANE” written on their forehead. They only sighed and drank from the flask.

Carina suddenly aimed just right and tackled her husband out of the air, almost suplexing him only to end up getting something written on her belly. Everyone looked over and there was a loud shriek of outrage before Carina wrestled the marker away from Vergil.

“I think I’m done…” Vergil took a sip from a cup of alcohol that somehow Trish took the time to offer him. He then collapsed, clearly out cold.

Dante grabbed the marker from Carina. “What did he write on you?”

“It’s personal.”

“Meh. Nico, help me out, will you? I’m going to write things on Vergil’s face.”

“Yay!” Nico went over to help Dante draw things on the unconscious twin.

“I’m so sorry…” Nero bowed his head in shame. “I had no idea that my dad has poor alcohol tolerance.”

“Nah. It was entertaining.” Trish grinned. “More fun than we’ve ever had in a long while.”

Trish took a good long look at Carina who was trying to hide something that seemed to indicate a badly written ‘more babies’ on her stomach. While she barely interacted with Vergil who was once Nelo Angelo years ago, there was no indication of Mundus having been aware of Carina’s existence. Because if he knew, he would have used her just as another tool to try to break the stubborn twin to bring him fully under his control. Maybe that was why Vergil could never be controlled in the first place? Because his human heart was stubbornly holding onto her throughout the reign of terror and torment?

“So, how did you and Vergil ever meet?” Lady brought up what Trish was thinking.

“I’m from Fortuna. He was looking for information on his father. Nearly passed out from starvation and no sleep.”

“Mundus never liked that island. Couldn’t even figure out how to get rid of it so he left it alone.”

“Ugh, is that bastard still around?” Carina muttered darkly. “Vergil said that was why he had to leave for my own protection. Would a shotgun even have worked against him?”

“Probably not.”

“So, you’ve got a gun? How good are you? Totally should have a shooting competition some time.”

“Sure, I’ll take you up on that. I’m Carina. You two?”

“I’m Lady, she’s Trish.”

Dante and Nico were admiring their handiwork with Nico snapping pictures of Vergil’s face. Sam looked over and went “oh god” before sipping from the flask.

“He’s going to murder you both when he wakes up.”

“Vergil deserves it for all the bullshit he’s put me through. Karma.”

“Excuse you, I’m karma here.” Nero yelled.

Not like Nero was wrong in that respect, considering Vergil had barely veiled contempt at Arkham years ago regarding ‘fatherly love’. A rather funny contrast to now in which Nero had to deal with an embarrassing emotional breakdown from his father. Also, that showdown few months ago in which Nero had to practically beat some sense into his father.

“I don’t know how I’m going to get him back home.”

“I’ll help you, mom.”

Kyrie grabbed Lady and Trish’s hands. “Thank so much for throwing this party! I had a blast!”

“Not a problem. We did get some useful things for the baby, some cute clothes and extra diapers.”

“Oooh! I love this onesie. “Daddy’s Little Monster!”... Nero is totally going to die from embarrassment.” Kyrie squealed. “Thank you two so much!”

\--

Vergil woke up on the couch in the morning. Why did his head hurt? Also, what was that sleeping on his chest? It was a tiny black fuzzball that was purring softly. Carina came in with some water and painkillers.

“Morning.”

Vergil held the little black kitten as he moved to a sitting position. He accepted the pills, dry swallowing the painkillers and chasing them with water. “What happened last night?”

“Drinking game. You lost after the first drink. Then you got emotional and passed out after Trish gave you another drink.”

“Damn it. Did I do anything embarrassing?”

“...kind of.” She lifted her shirt. “Care to explain?”

He rubbed his head, grimacing. “Seeing the pictures made me feel guilty that I missed out on so much. I suppose a small part of me wouldn’t mind having more children… but do I deserve this after all the mess I’ve caused over the years? Countless people dead in my selfish quest. Do I even deserve happiness at all?”

“It’s obvious that you regret and have been trying to make amends.” She sighed, sitting next to him. “Everyone deserves happiness. On the other hand, I have no qualms about having more children with you. All I ask is that you don’t try to escape again.”

She slid her hand into his. “Never.” He answered her, leaning in for a kiss. “Never again.”

The kitten meowed loudly, demanding to be fed.

“Also, this kitten?”

“Oh, funny story. Dante found it outside of the building and it immediately spiked him in the face. He said that it was a Shadow kitten?”

“Correct.” Vergil pet the black kitty, obviously happy. “We definitely do need a cat around here.”

\--

“Ow.” Lady yawned, tangled up in the sheets. 

Sunlight was coming through the windows and it was too damn bright for her to deal with. She stared at the wall, wondering how there were all these scorch marks. What the hell happened last night? She turned her head to the other side.

“Morning.” Dante yawned, stretching. “...so. What happened last night?”

“I think we drank a lot. Also, your walls are a little… burnt?”

“Yeah, sounds about right.”

She lifted the blanket. “We seem to be naked.”

“That we are.”

“Round two?”

“Jackpot!”


	6. Firefly Moments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dad jokes mostly certainly does not lead to a pandora's box being opened. Empusa Express has a certain drawback when taking the fastest method.

“So, why are you here.”

“Aw, c’mon! Can’t we just do some normal sibling bonding time?”

The twins were sitting in the kitchen at the table with coffee mugs. It had been several days since the party and the younger teased the older about his low alcohol tolerance. The older pointed out that alcohol wasn’t necessarily a thing he had much experience with.

“Yeah, but we’re supposed to have good metabolism, bro. Unless…?”

“Did you ever pass out from one drink?”

“Nope.”

“I moderately hate you for that.”

“At least that’s a step up.”

This was a rather slow attempt at trying to hang out with each other, this was the first week and so far it was going considerably okay despite the slight barbs.

“You guys doing okay?”

Vergil let out a sigh. “As much as we can be.”

“So, she’s not mad at you for writing on her belly?”

“No. We had a conversation about it.” He was still feeling considerably embarrassed thinking about the party. There was a rather fuzzy memory involving him writing various things on people. “And she’s okay with the idea. We’re less certain on how to time this.”

Dante chortled. “Imagine that. Nero having to deal with fatherhood and being an older brother at the same time.”

“...I don’t even feel as though as I’m ready to be a grandfather either. I still don’t know how to be a father.” Vergil pulled out a book, scanning through it.

Dante squinted at the cover of the book. It was “Parenting for Dummies; Dad edition. Unlimited Dad Jokes Special” and had no words over the fact Vergil himself was desperate enough to resort to purchasing this book. He glanced at the pile of books on the table and sighed once he read the spines. His brother was that hopeless.

“Nero’s been visiting more often to help me adjust to certain changes I’ve missed out on.”

“Like what?”

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to use this smartphone Carina got me.” Vergil pulled the phone out, still frowning at it. “I can understand the basics. I’ve never given much thought to ever using a computer or anything like that.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. Not something I’ve used in my business despite Patty yelling at me to modernize. Though I may reconsider getting one since Lady pointed out that I could order pizza that way. Maybe they’ll actually forget the olives this time.”

“How is that you even have difficulties with the olives after all this time?”

“Rotten luck.”

“Speaking of rotten luck. Addressed that tension?” Vergil shot a glare at Dante. “Or have you managed to chicken out still?”

“It’s resolved. For now. Still figuring out where to go from there. Might have gotten an earful for the scorched wall.”

“This is the part where you seriously refrain from explaining the wall.”

“If you say so.” Dante took a sip from his mug. “Where is Carina anyway?”

“She mentioned something about a shooting range and getting to know your partners?”

“Oh boy. That’s going to be interesting.”

There was a slight groan from Dante as the older twin stared at him with a “what”. He had mumbled something about Devil Arms and something about a pandora box. There was some complicated explaining about how Dante had attempted to sell off some Devil Arms to keep the business afloat and he didn’t really have a need for all the weapons lying around before Vergil gave him a blank stare.

“Was that really wise to have them out there in the human world like that?”

“I kept some of them for myself!”

“The ones that you thought were cool, you mean.”

“Well, yeah. Pandora’s Box is a special weapon.”

“What do you mean.”

“It’s a briefcase loaded up with every gun imaginable.”

Vergil only sat in utter silence. “Please don’t tell me Carina has access to that.”

“I, erm, can’t confirm or deny that?”

\--

“So, what is this briefcase?” Carina asked, watching Trish drop it in front of her.

“I suppose you could call it… a late wedding present. It’s your own Devil Arms now.”

Carina only rose an eyebrow at the briefcase, picking it up. She didn’t know what to expect before watching it explode into a variety of arsenal. She was utterly entranced by the promise the briefcase held for her.

“Holy shit. This is the best gift ever, Trish.”

“I figured you would need just a little extra.”

“This is more than just a little extra.” Lady stared at the impending chaos. “Dante okay with this?”

“Dante probably doesn’t know. He’ll live. So, how was the fun that I arranged?”

“What arranged fun--”

Lady froze for a moment, flashing back to that morning. Oh. If she could, her stare would be drilling holes in Trish’s forehead. Trish only shrugged in return pointing out that she was sick of the tension and thought that the best way to defuse it was to get them drunk and dump them in the bed naked. Lady couldn’t even begin to figure out the logistics of how the clothes were even removed much less the amount of alcohol that managed to knock both of them out.

“You-- it was fine.”

“Suuuuure.”

There was an explosion.

Carina was able to get the briefcase hastily rearranged and acted as if she had done nothing wrong. There was a nice huge hole in the wall in which everyone could look through for more of the city's scenery.

“I may have hit the trigger a little too hard.”

“That’s some power alright.”

“I’m keeping this.”

“Normally that wall is proofed against rockets…” Lady began but faltered. “But that doesn’t cover devil arms.”

\--

Somewhere, Nero had the distinct feeling that he should be prepared for trouble but he couldn’t figure out why. He had started doing more of Kyrie’s errands, trying to encourage her to rest more but she insisted that she was still able to do things. He protested back, saying that he didn’t want Nico to start yelling at him or making fun of him.

“We’re doing okay so far.”

“It’s just… I worry so much, Kyrie.” Nero sighed, putting the clean dishes away. “You’ve seen how much of a disaster my relatives are.”

“Speaking of relatives. When was the last time you saw them?”

“Um.” Nero had to think.

There was that baby shower party not too long ago and a rather unfortunate case of poor timing the next day in which he walked onto his parents making out on the couch. Had cleared his throat and went “nope” out of the house before they finally noticed and yelled after him. Nero wondered if he should call ahead this time around.

“Probably the party.”

“I thought you went to your parents’ the next day?”

“...I don’t want to think about that.”

Kyrie sighed and lightly swatted Nero on his arm with a dish towel. “You totally walked onto your parents, didn’t you?”

“I’m just lucky they were still clothed or I’d be in therapy by now. How is that they still even have the energy to be teenagers like that...”

“I think that’s an admirable goal to aspire to.”

“To scar our children for life?”

“Nero!”

The door knocked and both of them shouted to come in, the door was always open. Sam simply walked in, arms full of research paper in which they dumped on the coffee table. Nero looked over in confusion before going to Sam’s side.

“What’s the deal?”

“I think I figured out where Sparda is. There’s been a reported sighting of a ghost sitting on a park bench in Red Grave. Seems to have started since the tree was taken down.”

“Ghost?”

“I’m pretty sure you know what a ghost is.” Sam gave Nero a blank look. “But at least according to eyewitnesses, sometimes he appears to be a hazy figure. Other times, he’s completely visible.”

“I think we gotta tell my dad this… wait, let me call ahead to make sure my parents aren’t being horny teenagers.”

Sam stared at Nero, speechless. Then they went back to organizing the papers, muttering under their breath.

\--

The ladies were camped out at a restaurant, trying to focus on their meal. Lady had done a great deal of apologizing to the owner of the shooting range. The owner only sighed and said they would bill the damages to Dante before Lady pointed out that she was going to pay for it. No need to dump the bill on Dante -- she had been feeling a little guilty regarding this few years ago when it was a bad habit of doing so because she assumed Dante had all the money, only to learn a hard lesson later.

Trish was poking at her salad, thinking it was too depressing to eat because the lettuce looked a little wilted and the toppings weren’t much to write home about. Just bring the steak on already!

“Is this a normal thing?” Carina said. “Dante gets billed for all the damages around here?”

“It’s why he’s so broke.” Trish replied, trying to stab a piece of lettuce. “We just didn’t realize how bad it was this year.”

“...so, something like what I did is pretty much standard fare?”

“Yeah, plus it keeps the constructors in business.”

Carina just rubbed her face with her hands. “Let’s hope I don’t have to use Pandora until absolutely necessary but I know my husband is going to throw a fit regardless.”

“He’ll have to deal with it.” Trish said. “...huh?”

The blonde frowned in puzzlement, she could hear weird chittering sounds in the distance. Certainly sounded as if they belonged to the underworld and it sounded as if the voices were panicking trying to find their queen.

The women watched as a herd of Empusa swarmed into the city, nearly passing by the restaurant. There was a loud screeching noise as they scrambled back, staring into the window like lost children.

“What.” Lady said. “Damn it-- food’s not even here yet.”

Lady was ready to leap from her chair with her hand on a desert eagle strapped to her leg but Trish held out a hand to stop her. Carina was only staring back at the Empusa herd, not sure what to make of the entire scene.

“Hang on.” Trish said, still frowning. She was trying to understand the dialect but it seemed the swarm was intensely fixated on Carina for some reason. Then it finally hit Trish as to why.

“But… we can’t just leave them out like this!”

“They’re waiting for their Queen.”

“Oh gods, not an Empusa Queen--”

“No. Her.”

Carina sighed, facepalming. “I keep forgetting about that. I still never did manage to ask Vergil about the details on what that meant.”

“That’s kind of terrifying.” Lady responded.

\--

Vergil hung up the phone. “Sam and Nero’s on their way over. Something important.”

“I hope it’s not another surprise demon attack. I wonder what the ladies are up to.” Dante put down his empty mug.

“Nothing good, I would imagine.”

“Hah, that sounds like them!”

“I can only hope Carina doesn’t partake in whatever foolishness they have planned. I am not sure if I should have even said that in the first place.”

“Lemme call them.” Dante dialed the cell phone, trying to reach Lady.

Lady had immediately answered with a “Hi Dante! We’re kind of dealing with a super weird problem.”

“Oh, nothing that you guys can’t handle.”

“Uhhh. Do you know how to command an army of Empusa?”

“What.” Dante stared at the phone as if it was melting in his hand. “What army?”

“You might want to talk to your brother!” Trish shouted.

Dante gave Vergil a weird look in which Vergil responded with, “I have no idea whatever you people are on about.”

There was more loud chittering as Dante could hear Lady shout at Carina to not get too close to the demons. The twins were ready to leap out of their chair before they heard the chittering start quieting down as if they had been tamed like mere kittens. Shadow spiked Dante in his ankle, making him lift his leg up in annoyance.

“Take the cat, will you?!”

Vergil gently removed Shadow and her spikes from Dante’s ankle. Lady sounded surprised over the phone, saying that she couldn’t believe it but it seemed that Carina had complete control over the demons. They were now behaving nicely for her and Trish was heard laughing in the background.

“...what are we supposed to do now that they’ve got control of the situation?”

“Uh, yeah, Trish said something about King of Hell?”

Vergil’s face went blank. His hand had stopped mid-petting Shadow which caused the kitten to get annoyed and reached up with her paws to force the petting to resume. However, the man was attempting to transverse his odd memories from his demon half before there was a loud, resigned sigh.

“I did take over, even when half dead and that was before the fruit.”

“Yeah, but I beat your ass, so shouldn’t I be the king?”

Shadow gave a loud meow before spiking Dante again. Dante sighed again, staring at the cat.

“It would seem Shadow disagrees. Also, if the underworld still considers me their king if they can easily take orders from my wife.”

“I would think they’d take orders from her anyway.”

“...yes.”

Nero and Sam had arrived with a lot of papers and general confusion as the papers were dumped on the table. Sam tried to explain the stuff all over again to the twins in which they both went “Wait what” in regards to Sparda sightings.

“I don’t understand.” Vergil said. “Why would father show up after all this time?”

“Yeah… especially with the tree?”

“It would seem.” Sam cleared their throat. “The tree may have been the triggering factor or whatever happened during that time. According to my research, Sparda originally divided the worlds of Human and Devils apart because of the tree.”

“That sounds correct to me.”

Sam pulled out a spare notebook, flipping through it. “Mundus’ right hand man, correct?”

“Yes.”

More pages rustled as the researcher kept mumbling to themselves. It was a working theory but Sam had considered that the Sparda perhaps had started feeling pity for humans and seeing so many deaths caused by the fruit. Probably felt that he couldn’t put up with seeing humans suffer needlessly and chose to divide the worlds, trapping himself on the human side.

There were a lot more working theories and Sam was trying to tally the results to at least figure out the best way to catch the sighting. Seemed tonight was going to be their best effort and oh, at 8:30 pm very specifically in Red Grave Park.

“Huh. I think I remember mom talking about that. She used to tell us stories about how they met and had a night stroll in the park. Made it super sappy and romantic.”

“I wonder if he’s been waiting for her all this time.” Vergil answered Dante.

The twins were now wincing in pain as they thought about it. Maybe if they had been patient for their mother instead of brushing her off, they could have had more stories. Hindsight. Nero only stared at them before Sam sighed with a shake of their head. Then they proceeded to flip through more notes and fumble with their coat.

“We probably should leave now if we want to get to Red Grave in time.” Dante said, standing up.

“Did you forget I have Yamato?”

“I thought the point was to use it as little as possible.”

Vergil conceded the point to the younger twin, but he didn’t feel right about leaving the house without letting Carina know about what they were going to do. He needed her gentle touch to help him brace himself for what was going to come. 

“Worried?”

“Yeah…”

\--

The ladies had finished their meal after getting the herd to behave outside. There were a lot of confused stares from the passerby as the women returned outdoors. Some considerable discussion was had as to what to do with them.

“They’re your retainers and are pretty good at transporting people. Might leave you a little covered in blood.”

“Terrific.” Carina told Trish. “This day has been way too interesting.”

The Empusa herd were patiently waiting for a royal decree from their queen. Lady still found the whole thing odd and off putting. She asked Carina if she had any idea as to what she was going to do with the herd once she got back home.

“I’ll figure something out. Maybe they could keep the yard well maintained… maybe watch dogs?”

“Do you really think your husband would go for it?”

“Hell if I know. He’s probably got no idea either if I were to ask him.”

“Let’s do this again sometime… without extra demons.” Lady said, still clearly weirded out.

Trish only laughed at Lady in return and the two walked off on what seemed to be another shopping trip. They had offered Carina earlier but she declined, saying that she had to get the article finished and she only had less than 24 hours left to finish it. With the duo gone now, Carina turned to her new retainers.

“Alright. I guess you know where I live.”

The Empusa Herd answered in positive chittering as they scrambled to dig a puddle of blood. Ugh, that wasn’t a joke? Good thing she favored red so she wouldn’t look… too awful. Carina pinched her nose and stepped into the puddle, falling through.

\--

“Is that blood I smell?” Dante sniffed the air. “Who’s inju--”

He was interrupted by the sight of a blood coated Carina running through the house to the bathroom. There may have been a loud “BLOOD EVERYWHERE BLOOD EVERYWHERE” accompanied by a “baaaaaaaaaaagghghhghg”. The door slammed loudly as Nero pointed out the obvious.

“Why is my mom covered in blood?!”

Everyone looked outside, there was a small puddle on the ground that was starting to fade away but the Empusa Herd stayed behind, trimming the yard. Sam popped their flask out and took a healthy sip from it.

“Would that answer your question, Nero?”

“Ugh.”

Vergil was the first one to return inside, having reached the bathroom door. He could hear water running on the other side along with her scrubbing her body rapidly in a rough manner and winced. Didn’t she know how to be gentle on herself?

“Carina?”

“God! All the blood! Between my toes too! Ugh!”

“Do you need assistance?”

“As much as I would love that, you have company.”

“I could always send them away and lock the front door.” Vergil answered calmly and he meant every word of it.

“You would lock your son outside?”

She got him on that count. Nero would be less than impressed at being locked outside by his own father but maybe with time forgiveness would come…? Vergil was more than certain he could sense his own wife glaring at him through the door.

“No. Are you okay?”

“I learned the hard way that Empusa Express sometimes involves blood that gets into weird places.”

“Ah. To my understanding, it was particularly challenging to others when travelling through the tree itself.”

“You?”

“Memories a little fuzzy.” Vergil didn’t want to get into the details. As V, he had Griffon but as Urizen, he certainly did his share of travelling through the blood as if it was nothing. Such things didn’t concern the demon half, merely an inconvenience.

“Another case of ‘I’m pretending not to remember so I don’t have to talk about it’. Whatever, you can come in and grab my clothes.”

“Would rather grab you.”

“Company!”

He stepped into the bathroom and picked up the pile of blood stained clothing off the floor, still dripping. If it wasn’t for the Empusa Express, he would have sworn his wife had bathed in the blood of her enemies. Quickly leaving the bathroom to dump the load in the washing machine as everyone else looked on. They weren’t going to comment on the man being suddenly domestic before them.

He had returned to the bathroom with fresh clothes without being prompted to. “There’s something you should know.”

“Did you mug someone again?”

Vergil pinched the bridge of his nose. “No.” Then he let out a loud sigh. “There’s a family matter I need to attend to.”

Carina popped her head out, partially having pushed the shower curtain away. “Family matter?”

“Complicated. I don’t know if I’ll be okay.”

“Do you need me to come along or is it just something more private that you’d rather deal with now and tell me about it later?”

“Maybe the latter. I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“Alright. I’ll just be here, finishing up my writing. Remember to call me whenever you’re on your way home.”

“Will do.” Vergil gave her a quick kiss. “You still stink of blood.”

“Damn it.”

\--

The group was now in Red Grave at this point, waiting around the park. Nero had called ahead and let Kyrie know about family stuff that came up and having to babysit his male relatives in order to keep them from causing shit again. The twins were naturally offended at him, claiming that they had been improving. Nero just squinted at them, “Yeah, sure. After how many years?”

Sam was writing in their notebook, taking note of the surrounding area. Then their eyes settled on a sign called “Noodle Incident”. Sam blinked, looked at their notebook then back up, squinting at the place. Evidently, it would seem that this was a restaurant called Noodle Incident. Sam stood there for twenty seconds before they wound up throwing the notebook on the ground out of sheer frustration for reasons only the goddess of time knew.

Everyone else stared at Sam. “I don’t want to get into it.” Sam said, crossly.

“Alright, it’s what, 8:30?” Dante yawned. “Should’ve stopped for dinner on the way. I’m hungry… think there’s a decent pizza place nearby?”

“Foo--” Vergil was interrupted at the beginning of what would have been a rant if it wasn’t for the sight of fluttering fireflies.

Fireflies? At this time of the year?

They seemed to be settling into a ghostly shape sitting on a bench. Features barely visible, the person was staring at the night sky. The twins had gone quiet once the features finally filled in with the fireflies’ lighting becoming stronger. Nero didn’t know what to say either, having never really seen a picture of his grandfather before. (Considering the painting was already off at a restorer at this point!)

“Dad…?” Dante began. “Is that you?”

“Ah, boys. It’s been a while.” There was a coughing laugh. “Years must have slipped by me if you are already adults.”

The twins retculantly approached the bench before the older one said. “Where have you been all this time?”

“Somewhere between dead and non-existence.”

“Then what are you?”

“Nothing more than a memory. Ah, your mother and I knew my time was up. My time in the human world being cut off from the devil’s world left me weaker than I thought. We made the decision to split some of my power into the swords that were left for you boys. Then we made the memory of our first date here so that if she found a way to restore me, I would have returned.” Sparda was looking at his hands as if he was expecting to find something on them, but his hands appeared to be intact.

Vergil had an odd feeling of deja vu regarding that motion. It wasn’t too long ago that he was suffering so much damage that it felt like his own body was cracking under the strain of keeping himself together. Even splitting himself hadn’t repaired the damage until after the events that had followed in which he forced himself back together. He struggled to recall if Sparda had suffered from the same effects but came up with nothing.

Sparda hid things so well, how ironic that he would have learned that one obnoxious element from his father of all people…?

Sparda stood up, hugging both of his sons. The hug felt light but substiantal enough to let them know that he was still here in a manner of speaking. There was something to be said about how the hug was badly needed but at the same time, knowing that it was the last time they would ever embrace their father spoke volumes.

“Well, well, who is this young one?”

Nero looked startled. “M--me?”

“Yes!” Sparda let go of the twins. “You’re my grandchild, aren’t you?” He was standing before Nero, carefully scrutinizing him.

“Uh… I guess? You really don’t look anything like the statues in Fortuna.” He was clearly a little spooked by this strange older gentleman. Thankfully, he looked relatively normal in his human form and not his usual bugged out cockroach form. Not like Nero would ever know what that looked like considering Order of the Sword had some insane ideal that Nero could never understand. 

“Ah! Bah! That island! I had completely forgotten about it.”

Sam rolled their eyes before picking the notebook off of the ground. “I’m not surprised…” They complained as they resumed taking notes again with a side of a flask sip.

“Vergil, you have given me a fine grandchild. Dante, you should get to work on that!”

Vergil could gloat over this damn achievement if it wasn’t for the fact that he was disturbed by the entire information overload from his father. Dante made a sheepish sound in the back of his throat, waving his hand.

“Yeah, yeah. I just hadn’t found the right person yet.”

“What’s this about restoring you?”

“Ah. That.” Sparda returned to the bench. “Your mother was in the middle of finding a way when Mundus chose to attack. He had never forgiven me for betraying him after I saw what the fruit did to him.”

That went without saying. Nero had a brief flashback to the conversation that he had with V regarding the incident in question. He glanced back and forth from his father to his uncle, both looking very somber.

“But couldn’t I finish the work Eva started?” Sam asked, looking up from the notebook.

“Ah. Even if you could… I would have to say no.”

“Why not, dad?”

“I’ve had a long life as it was. Without your mother, how could I begin to live again? I have made peace with my fate. I am comfortable knowing that I have left my legacy to my children and a grandson who will keep watching the world for me in my stead. You all have made me proud.”

Then he smiled sadly, looking upon everyone. “I am so sorry I never told you boys why. But it is alright now. The truth shall set you free.”

He started glowing briefly, fading into many small fireflies that flew into the night sky before the lights twinkled out one by one as if they were never there. Sam’s mouth was left open as they closed the notebook.

“I think he’s really gone now.” Dante said. “I’m not feeling him anymore.”

“Same.” Vergil answered. “Perplexing that he held out as long as he did.”

“I’m not really hungry but…”

“Perhaps, sitting down will do us a world of good.”

The two went off to find a place while Sam and Nero stayed behind for a moment. Nero turned to Sam, “Research?”

“Ahhmm… ehmm… meh. I suppose it has to do with the nature of devils subsisting on human blood. I suspect that Sparda was dying because he refused to take in human blood. Might have felt that humans were getting hurt too much and chose to quit consuming human blood.”

“What does that mean for us?”

“Nothing. You guys are fine, owing to your human heritage. That’s keeping you stronger than the average Devil. Hell, I have no doubt that your father and your uncle could smash Mundus without even devil triggering at all.”

“Terrific. What’s this bit about Mundus going insane from the fruit?”

“It's Sparda’s word. I can only make a lot of guesses whether they’re educated or if I’m pulling it out of my ass. Maybe the concentration of human blood in the fruit drove Mundus crazy from power overload.”

“And.” Nero crossed his arms. “What does that mean for my dad?”

“Oh, he’s fine.”

“Is the fruit responsible for the bad dad jokes I’m getting from him?”

“...” Sam stared at Nero, at a loss for words. “You’re going to have to ask him yourself.”

The two were finally able to catch up with the twins at the same restaurant that had made Sam lose their temper for that one brief moment. Dante waved them over to a table.

“They have pretty kickass pizza! No olives for a change!”

“We decided that it would be appropriate to have dinner in memory of our parents.” Vergil answered.

“Why not?” Nero shrugged, grabbing a seat while Sam grabbed the other seat. “You didn’t say enough back at the house when we were grabbing stuff.”

“Some things we barely remember… others hurt too much to remember.”

\--

The next morning came on too quickly, didn’t it? Carina yawned, trying to grab the phone off of her nightstand to see if she ever got a text.

“Ah, bastard.” 

“Good morning to you too, wife.” Vergil took the phone out of her hand, returning it to the nightstand.

Carina had a puzzled look on her face, trying to figure out what the hell happened between last night and the morning. She never got a text back from her husband and she had lost track from working on the article to the point that she swore she was hallucinating a blue devil hanging from the ceiling.

He wrapped his arms around her, spooning and burying his face in the crook of her neck. “Want to stay in bed longer.”

“Is that your tail or are you happy to see me?”

“Both.” He purred into her ear, sending shivers down her spine.

Oh yeah, last night was not a dream.

Something landed on Vergil’s head and it was certainly not Shadow who was sleeping at the foot of the bed. That something was making little bird sounds and was clearing his throat before cawing out loudly. “Morning, princess! Hello, Sugar Tits.”

“What the fuck.”


	7. Blood Retribution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Questions only leads to nightmares.

“Why is it every time I see you, you get smaller?” Dante poked at the little blue bird that was currently puffing up his chest at the devil hunter.

“Wise guy! Just because you’ve defeated my previous versions… I can still beat your ass!”

“Not like that, you aren’t.” Dante chuckled, still poking the bird who puffed up angrily as if he was trying to show that he was bigger than Dante. This was never going to happen as Griffon was still no bigger than a sparrow.

“I was hoping someone would have some ideas as to how this happened.”

“Beats me, but you’re now stuck with this compact bird.”

Vergil couldn’t be sure if he was thrilled or not with the idea considering his plans for morning got wrecked by the bird’s appearance. His wife was less than thrilled, having buried her head under the pillows shortly after swearing. There was a failed attempt at recovering the situation in which he threw Griffon out of the window only for the bird to fly back in through a window in the living room, loudly narrating the bedroom's activities.

That was why he was in Dante’s office trying to figure out why the bird was back and doing a nice job of ruining any romantic moments he had planned. The younger twin was still amusing himself by harassing the bird. If Vergil wasn’t attached to the bird, he would leave him with Dante.

“I dunno, maybe you should try asking the bird?” Sam said from the couch.

The twins had accidentally forgotten Sam came by earlier because when Sam got in the zone with writing, they tended to get really quiet to the point where no one couldn’t even hear the pen scribbles.

“Haw! This guy has more brain cells than you two!” Griffon squawked angrily. “I’m here because princess himself missed me.”

Dante looked at Vergil. “I thought that was Shadow you missed.”

“All of them.” He facepalmed. “They were my constant companions during the whole ordeal. It hurt knowing that they were willing to sacrifice themselves just to end my nightmares.”

“And how are the nightmares?”

“Faint. It’s more of a feeling rather than a re-run.”

“So… what does that mean for Nightmare?”

Vergil paused, sweating a little bit. He certainly would have one hell of a time trying to explain to Carina why a large black mass smashed through the wall in the cottage. Maybe he would be lucky and Nightmare would only show up in a compact form. That, he could easily manage.

Before Vergil could answer, Griffon said. “That’s only if Nightmare wants to show up again. And even if he does, he would just be a very compact being. Look, we’re smaller because we returned without that baggage that was holding you down.”

“Ah. I see.” Vergil said, sounding a little unconvinced. “But even then, just thinking wouldn’t have done that so easily.”

“Fruit.” Sam called out from the couch. “The fruit grants power and I’m making an ass-pull guess here that it granted you the power of creation.”

“Bingo!” Griffon hopped around on Dante’s desk while flapping his tiny wings. “Your desire was enough to bring us back. You might want to be a little careful with your thoughts.”

“Or you could learn how to use it in a carefully controlled situation.” Sam called out.

“And Griffon.” Vergil began, picking up the bird off of the desk. “Please cease and desist with referring to my wife as ‘Sugar Tits’.”

Sam was speechless while Dante cracked up. “I imagine she didn’t take that very well.”

Griffon puffed up indignantly. “She should learn how to accept compliments!”

“There’s some things you should just keep to yourself, Griffon.”

\--

Mother and son were hard at work painting the walls in a spare bedroom. The top half of the walls was a soft pale yellow with the bottom half lavender. Carina only had questions about the colors before Nero shrugged with a, “Whatever makes Kyrie happy, I’m cool with it.”

“Haven’t seen Nico around lately.”

“She’s off at a convention for gunsmith and weapon artists. Said she was gonna get some ideas for the baby. God. I told her that the baby doesn’t need a weapon!”

“Didn’t stop her?”

“Nope. Kyrie made her compromise with a mobile instead. God only knows what Nico’s going to design…”

“At least we’ll get this room looking pretty nice. Wish I had a chance to do this with you.” There was a bitter note in her voice as she sighed, looking at the paint roller. “Missed out on everything.”

“Hey, mom. I’m still here. I mean, we’ve still got time, right?”

“Right. You’ve got paint on your face, Nero.”

“Damn!” He tried to scrub at his face as she laughed. “How did that happen?”

“You might want to be careful with that roller.”

“Jeez. I’m gonna call a lunch break.”

“Perfect timing!” Kyrie stuck her head into the room. “Oh my, the colors are even better than I imagined. Thank you so much for helping out, Carina!”

“Not a problem.” Carina shrugged. “How’s your ankle doing?”

“A little bit better this morning. Nero worries too much.”

“Kyrie…” Nero protested weakly but Kyrie cut him off with a look.

“I only lost my balance for a moment there. We’re fine, Nero. I’m not fragile.”

Nero followed Kyrie out of the room, still making protesting sounds. While Kyrie was right, Nero was just being an excessively overprotective dork. Carina went to work on cleaning up the painting tools not wanting to return from lunch and finding them difficult to work with. At least she got that finished article e-mailed off first thing before she came over to escape from an obnoxious bird and a confused husband.

She returned to the dining room to find everyone chowing down on chicken noodle soup. Kyrie had said that the weather felt right for soup and added that she made some pumpkin bread for dessert. Carina was able to grab a bowl for herself as she sat back, having asked Nero what happened yesterday.

“Oh, uh, that was really weird. Never thought I’d see something like in those ghost stories.”

“How so?”

Nero wasn’t sure how to explain it but he tried his best as confused as he was. Didn’t know that Sparda was that strong enough to leave behind a part of himself waiting for the day when he would be reunited with his family. In the end, he had chosen not to resurrect, instead allowing his memory to fade. It had spooked both of the twins and Kyrie asked if that they got the closure they needed, not having known what happened all these years.

“I think so, but dad was quiet the whole time.”

“Isn’t that how he is normally?”

“I dunno. I would think so, but…” Nero couldn’t even find the words to describe it. “Almost catatonic?”

“He seemed to be okay this morning.” Carina answered. “Though, we had to deal with a new roommate.”

“What roommate?”

“A little blue bird sassed me.”

“...” Nero slumped. “Griffon came back? Please don’t tell Nico or she would try to sneak him into the soup.”

“Nico isn’t even allowed near the kitchen anyway.” Kyrie pointed out. “Even if she means well, I’ve found some questionable tools in some dishes. Baking files into a cake isn’t a thing she should try to experiment with.”

“...why did she-- you know what, I’m not sure I want to know.”

“Speaking of which. I’ve been wanting to ask you something before I got involved with painting. I never did get to find the thing I was looking for at the Order building.”

“Are you suggesting that you go back there because that’s a no.”

“A couple of things. I have demon retainers outside right now.” Nero stared open-mouthed at his mom. “Secondly, I still want to know what’s with the group of demons that were trying to kill me the last time before I ran into Kyrie and Nico.”

Nero groaned. “That’s a good reason to not go back there.”

“Would it make you feel better if you came with me?”

“Maybe, but I feel like that’s not something you should go poking at.”

“That’s exactly the problem.” Carina started to gather up the dirty plates. “If we don’t deal with it now, what happens if that spills over to you and Kyrie?”

“Crud.”

“It’s okay!” Kyrie smiled at Nero. “Even though Nico gave me a nifty gun that helped out last time… I didn’t feel too good about that place either. Like there’s something evil lurking on the surface.”

“So, not just you too?” Carina said. “It was barely subtle but I wasn’t really looking for that.”

“Well, that’s settled. New mission then. Looks like the room’s going to have to wait a little longer.”

“That’s fine! I could maybe rope the rest of your family into finishing it.”

Nero was about to raise an objection but shook his head. His father and uncle had been getting along much better than they had in a long time, so there was no worry for him to worry about them trying to murder each other with paint brushes. 

“If anything happens, at least the retainers will be here to keep everyone safe.”

“It’s still creepy that you even have an army of Empusa.”

“Blame your father for that.”

\--

The building still didn’t look any better than the last time Carina was in it, trying to search for answers about her past. Nero said that ever since their last stunt, the workers had refused to come near the building. Not because of demon sightings, but because of the feeling as Kyrie had pointed out. It felt as if hair was standing up on the back of Nero’s neck the closer he got to the entrance.

It never felt like this before and he didn’t understand why. If he thought about the feeling too much, it was like drowning into a black sea of despair. Probably similar to that time he was being used by Sanctus for that statue. Ugh, he didn’t want to dwell on that memory.

For Carina, the feeling was stronger than the last time. It felt like someone was trying to get to her mind to infest her with bad thoughts. Reminding her that she was weak and no one wanted her around. She ground her teeth as she tried to swung her arm as if she was physically wiping away the thoughts.

“It’s definitely coming from one of the offices.”

“Wonder if there’s something I missed the first time around.”

Nero pushed on, brushing aside the oppressive feeling. He wasn’t sure if it was just him but it felt like the building itself had started growing dark as he reached the closed door. Carina brought her shotgun up, ready to shoot on sight. The door slid open on its own without Nero having touched the knob.

Nothing but darkness greeted them as they shouted, snared by the black nothingness that came out of the room. The shotgun went off several times, hitting nothing and there was a loud roar of Red Queen trying to slice through the darkness.

Carina was lying on the ground, on what seemed to be a thin veneer of water. At least, it looked like water but her clothing wasn’t soaking wet. She raised her head to look around, not having recalled falling. She pushed herself off of the ground, and began to walk forwards with puddles being left behind in her wake. She called out for Nero, since she realized that her shotgun was missing.

“Mom! I can see you!”

“Nero! Where are you?”

“I’m here and … not here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s such a disorienting feeling.” Nero felt as if he was on a whole other level of existence. He was nothing but a voice in the darkness, trying to make some sense of his situation. “Mom… you’ve gotten awfully younger.”

Carina took a quick good check of herself. “Shit, I haven’t been this young in decades. I’m what… seven? I think? My hair… I stopped wearing the princess hair after I turned ten.”

“Wait.” Nero was trying to do the mental math regarding the current situation. “I see what’s going on-- oh no.”

The darkness faded away into a familiar scene that Nero had been to several times. The house that his father had spoken of, the childhood lost that day. The house was off in the distance, looking pristine. There was a white haired child sitting on the green toy horse, quietly lost in his imagination.

Carina could only assume that maybe this boy was the key to getting them out of this dream. She was pretty sure that’s what they were in right now because for most of her life, dreams seemed to hold a lot of secrets. Then again, she was trapped in the body of a child, what could she do in this dream?

She had considered running and hiding in the trees but that seemed a little silly. So she did the only thing left to her. She approached the boy on the toy horse cautiously. He took notice of her and those same blue eyes, so full of childlike wonder had stopped her in her tracks.

“Who are you?”

How to answer this one…? “Rose Red.” She said, finally after some internal debate. It seemed safer to go back to her long lost childhood nickname.

“Like the story? Are you a princess?”

Nero groaned. He felt like dying from second hand embarrassment but that seemed to be a common problem for him lately. Not sure what he could do as a voice so he tried to see if he could wander a little closer to the house in the distance. Nope, he was firmly anchored in the area and he wasn’t at all surprised as to why.

It was like they were being forced to watch this scene.

“No, I’m just a girl from out of town. What are you doing?”

“Playing pretend all by myself. Thought I could find a princess to save. You’ll do.”

“What.”

“You’re definitely a princess! I’m sure of it!”

“Could you two not argue about this…” Nero was sounding exasperated. “Just look for a way to get out of here, even if that means humoring him.”

There was some odd sound in the distance but she didn’t have the right words to describe it. It was akin to a swarm of locusts except the shapes were hard to make out. It bothered the boy enough for him to jump off of the toy horse, grabbing her hand as they ran into the woods. 

“Why would you save me?” She knew she wasn’t a part of the original memory but yet, he was still saving her.

“It would go against the code of honor not to save a princess!”

The house in the distance started burning and the boy recoiled in shock, still holding her hand. How badly she wanted to comfort him but at the same time, she was paralyzed by fear. No wonder why she was left behind all these years ago for her own safety.

“My god… there was no way to fight back.” Nero whispered. “I’ve never seen overkill like this.”

An army of demons just to wipe out a small family of a mother and two young twins. The boy dropped her hand and ran towards the house once the army had retreated into the void. Carina started to yell his name out but the scene before her shattered like glass, sending her flying into the air. A tear trickled down her face as she landed on the ground roughly.

Her palms were bleeding a little bit from the rough surface. She was getting tired of falling in this goddamn nightmare. Well, nightmare was definitely a good way of putting it as she realized that she had aged by a decade and was wearing the Fortuna Standard Dress ™. She pushed herself off the ground, considerably pissed off.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Fuck this dress!”

On the other side of the glass wall dividing the two, Nero was grateful that he was once solid again but similarly stunned that he had de-aged. His devil bringer arm had returned and he ran his hands through his slightly longer hair. His custom Order uniform had returned and it embarrassed him a little bit that he was wearing the outfit again.

“Seventeen again…”

Carina knocked on the glass. “Hmm, can’t get through.”

“I think we’re going through our own hells this time around.” Nero sighed.

“What happened for you?”

“Kyrie got kidnapped and I… well, you know. The town blew up. You? Wait, no, don’t answer that.”

“Obviously.” Carina snorted. “I didn’t know you were such an adorable teenager. Only if I could pinch your cheeks and tell you to sweep Kyrie off her feet right now.”

“Moooooooom. PLEASE.”

\--

Vergil was staring at his cell phone. “Carina’s not picking up. She doesn’t do that.”

“Maybe she got busy with painting that she forgot to answer.”

“Nothing from Nero either…” Vergil said, staring at the phone with some considerable mistrust. “Let’s see if I remember the house number…”

“...didn’t Nero program that in?”

“Oh, here it is. Hello, Kyrie?” Vergil put the speaker on and put the phone on the desk.

“Hello! It’s nice to hear from you.”

“Hey.” Dante said. “We were just wondering what everyone was up to.”

“Oh, Nero and Carina went to investigate the order headquarters a while ago. They haven’t checked back in.”

“Why would they do that?” Dante asked. “I thought the whole thing was resolved.”

“Not really, the other day when we were there, Carina was being chased by a bunch of demons who kept chanting “Kill the Queen”...”

Vergil turned to Dante immediately. “Give me Beowulf right now.”

“What?!”

“Do you still have it or did you sell it off?”

“Um… in the closet, but …”

Vergil marched straight to the closet as Dante looked on. Once the older twin opened the door, an array of devil arms came falling out and sprawled across the floor. One of the swords chirped out, “It’s been a long time!”

“It’s a son of Sparda!” The other sword cried.

“Which one is this?”

“Must be the other twin.”

“And those two are why I had the closet soundproofed.” Dante sighed.

Vergil gave Dante a disgusted expression before cleaning up the mess and shoving all the other weapons back in the closet. He got what he needed before slamming the door. Dante could only guess that Vergil just really wanted to hit a rather unfortunate demon before he felt better.

“Noticed that you don’t have the guitar.”

“Uh, yeah, having dad’s ex-girlfriend around was creeping me out.” Dante waved a hand. “Not to mention the sour notes that kept coming out of the closet whenever I got romantic with Lady.”

Vergil picked up the phone. “Don’t worry. I’m just going to check on them.” Then he ended the call before drawing Yamato from the sheath.

“Long way around?” Dante helpfully suggested.

“No.”

“Bro! I’m sure they’re fine.”

Vergil slitted his eyes at his twin. “While I have confidence in Nero’s abilities. My wife on the other hand is a human.” After a long pause, he corrected himself. “Human beast.”

Dante fell out of his chair, laughing his ass off. He hadn’t expected his twin to make a crack out of nowhere. He got off of the floor, gasping for air.

Griffon hopped onto Vergil’s shoulder. “Let’s get a move on, princess. Sugar Tits left Pandora’s Box behind, she’s going to need all the help she can get!”

\--

The duo were still puzzling over the identical situation they had found themselves in and still unable to move on. Nero was more than certain he could sense the demon controlling the nightmare that they were in but didn’t know where it was.

“Maybe since we’re still in the same city… we should go to the room we went in before?”

“Couldn’t hurt to try.”

They both took off, mirroring each other’s movements. Carina was struggling with trying to push away the bad memories down. The memory of having crept down the stairs to overhear a strange woman arguing with her uncle and Nanny. Nanny seemed to be so angry towards the woman, wanting to know why she didn’t care about her child that she left behind. That was the first time Carina had ever seen her biological mother and it burned a hole in her stomach with the realization that her mother didn’t even want her. The next day, she was thrown into the cottage with Nanny for her company.

The nightmare was pulling out all her dark thoughts and fears to the surface making her feeling as though she was drowning. She still persisted for she knew that the past couldn’t anchor her anymore. Once she got to the building, she nearly dropped to her knees from the memory of being left behind that night, being told that it was for her safety. How Carina had screamed and raged after her husband left. How it took her a long time to come out of the heart break to swear that she wouldn’t have to depend on anyone but herself.

Nero was struggling against the familiar feeling of helplessness with the memories of failing to save Kyrie time and time again. He pushed them away, having told himself that Kyrie was back home and safe. The past couldn’t hurt him as he got to the building, breathing heavily. The necklace was mysteriously in his devil bringer hand as he frowned.

“This shouldn’t be here. She’s still wearing it right now.”

“To the door now!”

“Right.”

Carina didn’t know how but her shotgun was immediately in her hands, blasting away the demons crawling out of the walls. They were both heading towards the office with Nero switching between Blue Rose and Red Queen to deal with the demons on his side. They finally reached the office door after leaving a path of destruction behind them.

“On three…”

The countdown went off successfully as they opened the office door at the same time, the glass shattering through the air. This time, she hadn’t fallen to the ground, but was leaning against a wall in the tower with a baby strapped to her chest, shotgun still in the other hand. There was a brief moment of “what the fuck” as this wasn’t the outcome she was expecting. Carina spied a glowing door and threw it open, jumping into the glowing light.

“Oh god. Was that what it was like to be a baby?” Nero said, mortified. “What the fuck?”

“...I feel like that tower was familiar but I couldn’t possibly guess as to why.” She groaned, rubbing her head.

They were both in the office with walls dripping blood and they were standing on top of a large summoning circle with glowing runes. At least they were back to normal, if somewhat disoriented from the run-around they had to deal with going through several different levels of hell. Nero looked around the room, definitely alarmed.

“This is seriously freaky. I don’t remember anything like that.”

“They really did all kinds of research, didn’t they?”

“Yeah… but this is something else.”

The runes started glowing in mid-air and the room flooded with light then darkness. When everything returned to normal, they were in a ruined looking building with a large statue of a knight on a horse and broken staircases.

“Aw, hell, not again!” Nero complained. “I’m a kid again.”

“I don’t know where this is.” Carina said. “And I don’t like that statue. Looking at me funny.”

She wasn’t joking by a mile. The giant statue that loomed over them was of a winged man with three eyes on his face. Nero realized that the bad feeling had been coming from the statue this entire time. At least he still had his weapons even though the sword might be a little challenging for him to lift.

“Mom, be careful.”

“I’ve got nothing to be afraid of.” Carina said, completely ignoring the lightning in the sky as a large black armored knight manifested behind her. Nero yelled out and swung up Blue Rose but he was shaking...why?

The knight attempted to bring its weapon down on her but she blocked it with the shotgun, sighing and rubbing her head. “This is a dream, I can do anything I want. So I’m going to ask you nicely to stand down.”

She stared at the dark knight in the eyes which prompted him to drop his sword, kneeling before her. There was a loud snarling sound coming from the statue as the room shook, debris raining down on them. Nero grabbed his mom and ran for cover as a large stone hurled past their heads.

_“You’re the secret. The reason why I couldn’t break Sparda’s eldest.”_

“Ah, this asshole… what’s his name? Trash? Dirt? Mud? Something…”

“Probably Mud.”

The statue roared, trying to smash the duo but they had quickly moved from the shelter. Carina swung up her shotgun, blasting away to deflect his attacks. Theoretically, this shouldn’t be possible but since they had been trapped in a dream-like state and she had been trying to wrest control as soon as she realized it. All that time spent asleep definitely did her world of favors.

She didn’t know how she did it but she had broken the illusion placed on them, allowing their true selves to be revealed. Nero let out a loud whoop before shooting Mundus as she weaved through the room, dodging various energy spheres being thrown in her direction with the occasional shooting to deflect them.

“Only if I hadn’t left Pandora Box at home… shit!” A piece of rubble flew off the wall and struck her in the head, leaving a thin cut that bled into her face. Slightly stunned from the blow, Carina stumbled over onto her side.

“MOM!” Nero shouted, panicking. Mundus swatted him to the side so he was unable to reach his mother and that had pissed him off enough that he blasted straight into his devil trigger form.

The last thing Mundus expected was to face down a descendant of Sparda who had somehow managed to get him into a headlock before finally suplexing him through the walls of the castle. Carina groaned, wiping the blood from her face as she got back up. She followed through the hole in the wall, having noticed that the black knight was no longer in the room. An illusion, after all.

“I will have my retribution. In blood.” She said through clenched teeth as she reloaded her shotgun.

Or she could just sit back and watch Nero beat up the monster who had ruined Dante and Vergil’s childhood, setting them on a path of eternal conflict. Man, what wouldn’t she give for popcorn, alcohol, and a goddamn medic for this bleeding wound on her head. Mundus crashed into a room above her head as she wisely moved out of the way.

_“What is this madness? You must be Dante’s son that he spoke of.”_

“Yeah, the problem with that.” Nero pointed the gun at Mundus’ forehead. “Wrong twin.”

Mundus let out a loud panicked screeching at the realization that karma had taken a sharp left turn and was coming for him. His third eye was pierced by the bullet, shattering the facade, revealing his true face which was already damaged beyond belief from his last confrontation with Dante. He was still weak against the likes of a quarter demon and his very human beast of a mother.

Because they were still in a dream, Carina plunged her hand into her chest and pulled out a white rapier. There was a slight yellow glow around the sword as she panted, still wounded from the head injury and various bruising from having to hard dodge from earlier attacks. If she had taken the time to fashion an elaborate outfit, but this wasn't the time for such things. She was really, really tired of this bullshit.

Mundus fell to the ground floor, causing the island to shake. He hadn’t expected to get wiped so badly and leered rather mechaningly at the duo. _“You cannot hope to fully defeat me. Mark my words, your life will end soon.”_

“Yeah? Shut the fuck up because I’ve already been dead before. Metaphorically. Not gonna happen permanently, Mud.”

Then she thrust the rapier along with Nero stabbing Red Queen into Mundus’ forehead and there was a horrible shrieking sound as everything exploded into blood and white light. When things came back into focus, they were sprawled on the floor in the same office. The head wound was still there and Nero was looking as if he had been through a wringer himself. Both of them were covered in even more blood while surrounded by demon corpses sprawled throughout the room.

“Ow! Fuck! I thought that was a dream… ow!” Carina cried out, wiping blood out of her eye again. “Motherfucker!”

“Yeah, I really don’t like that asshole either. At least we’re out of that … thing.”

The office door blasted open with Vergil wearing the Beowulf arms, looking pissed and ready to throw hands with someone. Griffon let a loud squawk from the top of Vergil’s head. Dante looked into the room rather sheepishly.

“I think you missed the fight, bro.”

“Understatement of the century.” Nero said. “Nice of you guys to show up… just now?” He was still staring at the bird, unable to believe his eyes. Just a tiny bastard hanging out in his father’s hair?

“You weren’t picking up your phones.”

“I don’t think you can get a signal in nightmares.” Carina grimaced, pulling out her phone, seeing at least twenty missed calls and 90 texts from her husband. “Really.”

“I may have overreacted a little bit.”

“And you couldn’t be bothered to text me last night…”

“Wife. You are bleeding.” Vergil went over to Carina, helping her up. He scrutinized her face closely. “You’re going to need stitches.”

“I know. Ow!”

“Jeez. So, what’s with this goon thinking I’m your son?” Nero asked Dante who coughed.

“Let’s see… the one person I said that to was Mundus. I remember something about saying that I’d just let my kid deal with him.”

“What.” Vergil’s eyes had slitted. “YOU FOUGHT MUNDUS!? Wife! How are you still alive?”

“Still hurts and stings right now!” Carina yelled back.

“Yeah, the bastard didn’t die when I last took him on so Trish and I wound up sealing him away on Mallet Island. Didn’t think he would try to come back at another thin spot.” Dante glanced at the summoning circle on the floor.

“So, you know. Mom totally used a sword in that fight.” Nero said. “Didn’t know she could summon a sword like that.”

“It was a dream, of course I could manipulate that to do what I wanted.”

“Oh, a sword now? Are you giving up the shotgun?”

“Shut up, Vergil.”

“I’m going to call Kyrie and let her know that we’re okay.” Nero pulled out his phone, about to walk into the hallway before the sigils in the air flashed.

Dante didn’t have a good feeling about this as he pulled out his guns, ready to shoot at will. Mundus roared into existence and Vergil sighed and gestured at Carina to stay where she was standing before punching Mundus’ face back into the portal. The impact sent cracks into the entire room, destroying the summoning circle on the floor and walls. The demon corpses simply bounced everywhere. Dante hadn’t realized that there were more summoning circles that were covered up by the bleeding walls.

“Damn. You got more action than I did.” Dante complained.

“I feel better already, I’m keeping these arms. Also, I’m taking my wife home and making sure she doesn’t get herself into trouble again.”

“Come on! That wasn’t even my fault.” Carina protested. 

“I intend to lavish all my attention on your well being.”

“...okay then!”

Dante watched the couple swiftly leave the room as Nero stared ahead and muttered something about crazy parents. He ended his call and looked at the office wondering if they needed to set the entire room on fire. Hearing Kyrie’s voice had reassured him, knowing that the nightmare was just that and she was still at home with the ducklings.

“Didn’t think there would be someone in the Order researching Mundus.”

“There were so many scientists that it was hard to keep track of what they were looking into. I can’t believe that there was a summoning circle in this room all the time. I have half a mind to ask the workers to just stop cleaning up and rip it all down.”

“Not a bad idea if I do say so myself.”

“Is it possible that Mundus could come back again?”

“Here? Nope. There’s plenty other spots in the world but I’m betting that it’ll take him a long time to even try again after you two got him good. Probably chafes his hide that your mom even nailed him. My mom would definitely be proud.”

Then Dante seriously considered giving Lucia a call for her to keep an eye out on a giant broken looking marble statue in her part of the world. Assuming she didn’t hang up on him for being terrible about staying in touch with friends. He just sighed and shrugged at the thought.

“What are you thinking?”

“Stuff. See you later, kid.”

Nero watched Dante leave the room before he regarded the room with deep mistrust, leaving as he slammed the door behind himself. He had a feeling that dealing with Mundus was just a preview of things to come but he didn’t know how far that would be in the future. Whatever, he was more than ready.

\--

A few months had passed by at the busy household. The ducklings were taking on Kyrie’s share of errands as she had started getting bigger and it was getting harder for her to maneuver around the house. Nico offered to cobble around some inventions to make it easier on her. The room was finally finished with some gently used second hand furnishing and blanket she had knitted together with her mother-in-law.

Since that day, Nero had sprung on Kyrie that they should just go to the courthouse right away and just get married already. She was surprised but accepted gracefully. They decided that they would have the official ceremony after the baby was born. The jobs were still plenty and Kyrie was never without company of her new family whenever Nero was away. Sure, she still missed her older brother every now and then when hormones threatened to make her cry.

She wondered how Credo would have made sense of how much things had changed since that day. He would probably have been shocked by Nero’s birth parents if meeting Dante was bad enough back then. The entire Sparda clan was something special even if Kyrie had never met Nero’s grandparents. She was still secretly pleased with herself for how this one quest in finding answers for Nero managed to cobble together a new family and a sense of hope.

“I think we’re done with this sweater.” Carina yawned. 

“Looks great to me!”

“Yeah, at least my husband isn’t knitting them right now or you’d just have too many sleeves.”

“Is he that bad?”

“More like “instructions unclear, something went wrong here” kind of person.”

“Oh dear…” Kyrie chuckled. “At least Nero seems to have a sense of getting from point A to B.”

“Gets that from me.” Carina grabbed a bottle of ginger ale from the coffee table, sipping it. “Ugh, I haven’t felt this crummy in years. It’s like I have some kind of stomach virus.”

“So.” Kyrie began with a small smile on her face. “When’s the due date?”

Carina spewed out her drink before the realization set in. Oh shit, she hadn’t been paying attention again? Whoops.


	8. On the properties of Nightmares

A blonde woman was running through a dark house. She was trying not to scream as ominous sounding music played during her retreat. Finally, she stopped, panting and leaning on the front door. Just as she put her hand on the knob…

“Oh no, it’s going to be the monster behind this one, isn’t it?” Lady exclaimed.

She was sharing pizza and drinks with Dante on the couch, just enjoying a night in with a cheesy horror movie. It was one of the rare night offs when there wasn’t a devil hunting job to deal with. Good thing too, since the bills were all paid off and everything caught up.

“I can think of something a little scarier.” Dante chuckled, taking a bite out of a slice.

“Oh, really?”

The two hunters shrieked at the third voice, not having expected Patty to materialize out of nowhere. Pizza almost went flying everywhere, but Dante was able to swiftly capture the stray slices with the box and deft speed. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for drinks as Lady sighed at the mess on the floor (and her clothing). Patty rolled her eyes, complaining that she was knocking on the door all night and finally had to let herself in since they didn’t hear her.

“Sorry ‘bout that. Movie sucked us in.”

“I don’t know how you could watch that stuff.” Patty said. “Considering…”

“Hey, movies aren’t the same as real life.” Lady shot as she went off to raid Dante’s closet for a spare shirt while Patty stared at the floor.

The young woman gave a huff before retrieving cleaning supplies and went to work on cleaning up the mess that she caused. Dante knew that stopping Patty was next to impossible once she got started. Regardless, why the heck was she over here anyway?

“So, what’s the deal?”

“Nothing. Just wanted to check on the books--”

Dante interrupted Patty. “Hey! I’m not behind on bills again! I’m doing a lot better this time!”

“Good. Because I would have thrown everything at you if you did that again--” There was a knock at the door and Patty shoved the mop into Dante’s hands. “I’ll get that.”

“I’m always cleaning up messes forever, aren’t I?”

“Dante! I thought you said you did laundry?”

Dante sighed. “It’s that pile on the chair up there!” Then aside to himself, he said, “I should’ve remembered to fold them.”

Patty opened the door and stared at the tall figure before her. He stood there, looking eternally awkward with a quiet, “Hello.” And that was when Patty spun around and bellowed out loud to Dante who wasn’t even that far away inside the building, “Dante! Your evil twin’s here!”

Vergil was less than amused. “I find that offensive. How do you know if Dante isn’t the evil one?”

"Probably because I'm not going around erecting random giant things."

"My wife has no complaints." Vergil smirked.

Patty snickered as Dante shot her a glare. "You're too young to even understand!"

"Says the one who missed my eighteenth birthday party!"

Dante winced at the reminder. He was previously invited to the said party but wound up missing it due to him underestimating Urizen’s strength and unintentionally taking a month-long nap inside the tree. With that in mind, he pointed at Vergil. “That was his fault I missed your party.”

“Really?” Patty blinked and gave Vergil a rather stern looking frown. “What did you do?”

“I absolutely refuse to discuss this.”

The younger twin snorted with laughter as he tilted his head. “Actually, why are you here?”

“I was in therapy.”

“Holy shit.” Lady said as she walked down the stairs, in a fresh change of clothes. “Did I hear that right? _Therapy?_ ”

“Don’t be surprised. Carina recommended it and said that I needed to reframe my issues in manageable terms so I could have a refreshing introspection.”

“Translation, you bullshit’d your problems.”

“That’s putting it mildly, Dante.”

“Whaddya tell the doc?”

“Prisoner of war who was long thought to be dead to the world. Did unsavory things under duress.” Both Dante and Lady gave Vergil blank stares. “...I’m well aware of the fact that the Temen-Ni-Gru incident predates my explanation. It was a foolish tactical risk into enemy territory that caused an unfortunate cascade of events.”

“How many sessions did it take?”

“Ten.” Vergil answered, tersely.

“Not surprised.”

“The other thing is…” He strained to get the rest of the sentence out, “I am here to take the first step. Making amends.”

“You sound like you need a nap from saying that.” Dante got a blank stare from Vergil in return. “Damn, you’re serious.”

“This is not easy for me. Temen-Ni-Gru was my fault and I caused a significant amount of destruction.” Vergil still struggled with remembering if there were any instances of having caused death but he couldn’t be sure himself. “Death too.” He was certain of that as two divided beings.

“Oh jeez.” Dante muttered quietly. He would offer his twin a drink to calm his nerves but had the distinctive recollection that it would only make his brother more emotionally upset as well as being a part of the floor, much like what happened at Nero and Kyrie’s baby shower. “Patty? Think you could get us some water?”

Without a word, Patty rushed off to find a water bottle in whatever the hell Dante called a kitchen. Lady crossed her arms, not sure whether to believe what she was hearing or not. “You do know that my dad was responsible for that too?”

“I listened to him. That was more than enough. If I had trusted my instincts, I would have left and gone back to Carina. But I didn’t and because of my actions, I not only hurt everyone here involved, I also fear that I caused irreparable damage with Carina.”

“What do you mean?” Dante asked. “Everything okay with you two?”

“I don’t know. She’s quiet, keeping her thoughts to herself. Some mornings, I find her stuck in the bathroom, lying on the floor or hugging the toilet.”

Patty handed Vergil bottled water of which he accepted and thanked her. Dante wrinkled his nose. “Maybe you should buy her some flowers to cheer her up?”

Lady quietly facepalmed. Men.

\--

“How did that saying go again? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results every time.” The small blue bird cackled at Carina.

“Riiiight.” She slammed down another positive test on the counter, adding to a pile of several tests. “I didn’t think it would happen that fast. I stopped the pills after a month then … bam!”

Griffon peered at her with all six eyes, puffing up and huffing. “You’ve got more brains than your spouse.”

Carina took a deep breath, trying to control her nausea. Maybe she should fill that prescription but for now, that cold washcloth on her belly felt so damn good. She laid back down on the floor, sighing with an arm over her face. The bird took his time shuffling the test sticks around on the counter, complaining about how his ‘master’ was too stupid to see it. A stick slipped off the counter, landing next to Carina with a clatter.

“Say, sugar tits. Did it ever occur that you might be having a litter? After all, older women get, the easier it is for them to have twins… or more. Maybe?” The bird seemed to be thinking things over. “Great, knowing my luck, they’ll all be like Nero. Too many pimples.”

“Do not insult my son!”

She immediately grabbed the stick off the floor and nailed the bird, knocking him off the counter. He landed on the floor with a muffled yelp. “...scary woman…”

“Okay, I need my phone.” Carina complained, pulling the cell phone out of her leggings’ side pocket, fiddling with the contacts app. “Nero?” 

“Hello? Oh, Mom. What’s up?” Her son finally answered. It sounded like he was in the middle of wrestling some wild kids.

“Your stupid hot father knocked me up.”

“Mom, please!”

“Sorry. Are you really okay with being a big brother… years late?”

“Uhhh. I guess. The timing is a little weird. Where the hell is dad and why isn’t he taking care of you? Wait. Does he even know?”

Carina stared at the white ceiling, as if she could drill holes into it. No, she didn’t say anything to her husband and she didn’t know how to. She was nearly mute ever since Kyrie dropped the information bomb on her. There was some considerable panicking on her part as the remembered trauma came flooding back. How depressed she was from being “discarded” to the point she was fuming with rage afterwards. How she was torn between wanting to run away when she had the chance and staying behind, scared that he wouldn’t find her if she left. There was a heavy weight on her shoulders because of her choice to stay behind, she was parted from her child and experimented upon because of the chimera factor.

She considered it semi-lucky that she couldn’t remember the experiments. Privately, she asked Sam for the details because she was afraid that it might have changed her or something horrible, only to be told that whatever Sam’s evil boss tried, it didn’t work. The chimera factor played a large part in burning the drugs out so fast that they kept dosing her over and over, causing her to sleep for a long time. In the end, the scientists gave up on the experiment and dumped her on the mainland without a memory except for the implanted false ones. 

“No.” She said, finally after a long pause.

“Mom! Why not?”

“Because… I’m scared. I’m scared that he’ll disappear on me again.”

“You know, I swear I will kick his ass and drag him back.”

“I once told him the same thing myself. A lot of good that did me when I couldn’t even protect you. You guys are something special and I’m just a blasted human.”

Nero groaned over the phone, his hand sliding down his face. Damn, if it wasn’t a bitch to hear similar sentiments echoed back at him. There were times when he felt the same way, helpless but getting back up because he was such a stubborn son of Sparda. “Mom. You matter. Now, will you please talk to dad?” 

“I'll do that. Though, you should thank Kyrie for figuring that out.”

There was a loud sigh. “Speaking of which. We were tossing names around for ours. I don’t know if this would be okay or a little too weird? But Kyrie suggested that if we have a girl, we would name her… um… Eva?”

“You’re totally going to kill them with that. I’d pay $50 to watch them bawl.”

“Is that bad…?”

“Nah, a good name. I suspect they’ll get super sentimental. Your dad is certainly capable of that… when drunk.”

“Don’t remind me. It took several weeks for me to scrub “son” off of my forehead. Maybe they should’ve stayed in hell.”

\--

The twins were still puzzling things over while Patty sighed. “Think we should tell them?”

“No, no. I want to see them eventually figure it out. The Sparda Brain Cell is fascinating to watch in action sometimes. God, Dante is adorable but he’s really dumb.”

“No kidding.”

Vergil finished his water bottle. “The only thing that bothers me is that Carina somehow smells ‘angry’ to me.”

“You can smell emotions?” Dante said, surprised. “You’re a little more in touch with that half, after all.”

“Not quite. It’s more like when she’s angry in a certain way, she withdraws. Last time she smelled like that was when I left her back in Fortuna decades ago.”

“Maybe you should upgrade the flowers to roses.” Dante said, scratching his head. “If she’s hugging the toilet, maybe chocolates is out of the question?”

“Oh my god, they don’t get it.” Patty said in disbelief. “That brain cell is dead. Someone please call the ambulance.”

“More like we’d have to call a necromancer and I think they would turn us down.” Lady retorted.

“Maybe Nero can help me?” Vergil pulled out his phone. “Confound this phone. Where is Nero’s number…? I’ll have to punch it.”

“You’re such an old man. Press that here instead.”

“I can do it just fine.”

“God, this is more entertaining than the movie.” Lady chuckled.

\--

After Nero got off the phone with his mother, the phone rang again. “Really?” He almost shouted at the phone, suspecting that it was his other parent. He was proven correct upon picking it up, resting his head on the wall. “Hello, father.”

“Son, do you know why your mom’s upset?”

“Just talk to her. Please.”

“Hmm. I think I’ll do that.”

Nero heard a familiar woosh and his right arm started itching. “Did you seriously just teleport in the middle of the call, dad.”

“You told me to talk to her, so I’m doing that.”

“...I meant for you to get off the phone then call her.”

Sometimes, Nero had to ask himself if they were really his parents but as Kyrie lovingly pointed out that everyone was still finding their place and it took a lot longer than a couple of months. 

\--

“And he just did that.” Dante shrugged. “So much for staying behind and making amends, eh?”

“I have no words for you.” Patty said. “So I’m going to get to those books!”

The blonde went over to the desk to inspect the books as Lady came up to Dante, still cracking up. The devil hunter blinked, clearly confused. “What?”

“That brain cell you’re sharing with your brother is barely a brain cell at this point.”

“Come on. I’m using it more than he is anyway. Flowers are always a safe thing, aren’t they?”

“Depends on the person.”

“Would you like a bouquet of guns then?”

“Not a bad idea, but really, Dante! That’s not the problem here.”

“The fact that Vergil left without giving a complete apology to either of us?”

“I”m not sure I would have ever accepted it. Still need time to get over that. Maybe another twenty years. But that’s not it.”

“What is it?” He locked eyes with Lady. “Other than Nero’s going to be a big brother.”

“When did you figure that out?”

“When you looked at me like that. I admit to being slow on the uptake sometimes, but not that dismally slow like him.”

\--

Vergil was staring at the countertop, puzzled. The sticks seemed to be forming “U DAD” and there was the matter of the dizzy blue bird on the floor next to his wife who was dozing quietly. He cleared his throat, returning to his phone.

“Nero, there seems to be a lot of white sticks with plus signs on them… spelled out in the shape of udad? What is udad?”

“WILL. YOU. JUST. TALK. TO. MOM. PLEASE.”

“She’s asleep. I don’t want to wake her up.”

Vergil could hear his son facepalm loudly through the phone. “Just… please. Talk. Why is it that everyone in this family is awful with conversations?”

“I don’t know.” He answered in a stilted manner. “I’ll let you go now, you clearly sound tired.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

With that conversation over, Vergil placed the phone in a random pocket in his coat. He yet had to learn how to acquire a pair of pants with pockets despite Carina’s attempts. He then went to pick up his wife and deposited her on the couch and then returned to the bathroom, still puzzling over the words on the counter. Griffon made his way back up, scowling at his master.

“I can’t believe you didn’t get it. All that hard work for nothing. Maybe she should have taken more tests so I could have had more words to work with. It’s not easy being your brain cell!”

Shadow meowed loudly at the bird, reminding him that she was the smart one despite her inability to speak human words. Griffon puffed up again.

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to show me, Griffon. I don’t see how udad is a word.”

“Someday, I will have to teach you the fine art of slang, princess.”

If Dante was here, Vergil was more than sure his brother would be losing his mind and laughing his ass off over the entire situation. Then he glanced at a trash can, seeing a box peeking out, briefly reading it. Then it finally occurred to him that just maybe, Vergil was that stupid. He facepalmed hard, sliding his hand down his face as he sat down on the toilet seat.

“Griffon.”

“Yes?”

“Are we having a litter?”

The blue bird sighed.

\--

Nero unplugged the wire from the house phone just in case Dante decided to try calling him. He didn’t know why he thought of that but one couldn’t be too careful with the entire family’s terrible habit of mucking up things and getting Nero involved with the cleanup. Kyrie was busy studying a psychology textbook at the dining table.

He was surprised when Kyrie decided out of the blue that she was going into counseling as a career choice considering that there was a lot of trauma on the island after what happened with the Order and there weren’t enough people around to help out. Someone was going to have to do something and she decided she was that someone. Nero couldn’t help but support her in her endeavor, but gently reminding her that breaks were still important no matter how hard she studied.

“Are the boys in bed yet?” Kyrie asked when she looked up from the book.

“I’ll take a quick glance just in case.” Nero answered, still internally grumbling to himself over family interruptions. “Back to back calls from parents. God, that still feels weird.”

“Still, I’m glad that you have them back. Is Carina okay?”

“Just scared of history repeating itself.” Nero sighed. “Not that I don’t blame her. Sometimes, I can’t believe the guy’s back in my life.”

“Are you two making an effort to get along, right?”

“It’s been a challenge at times. A lot of times we stand around, not knowing how to talk to each other. In a way, it felt easier when he was, you know, V.” Nero thought back to the various moments when V was dropping tidbits of information here and there on the missions. “Eh, meh, I think we’ll get there one of these days.”

“Has he tried to drop fatherly advice on you?”

“Tried to give me the “talk”.”

Kyrie stifled a giggle, knowing how well that attempt went. That day, Nero rolled his eyes and immediately left the room with his hands over his ears, yelling that he was already familiar with the finer details of birds and bees, thank you very fucking much DAD. Nero was still embarrassed regarding his overreaction. He grumbled under his breath, briefly leaving the room to check on the children.

Kyrie was left alone with her text book and thoughts. There was a tiny ache in her chest when she opened up her notebook, seeing a half written letter to Credo. It was something she was doing in secret just to relieve the ache of being unable to talk to her brother about what was happening in her life. She sighed, she would have to finish the letter another day. The baby was wearing her out already with random moments of energy and the increasing weight on her back.

She removed the books from the dining table, wanting to leave it all nice and tidy for breakfast in the mornings. That was now Nero’s duty as he loudly insisted on doing breakfasts despite her protests. They were a team after all, weren’t they? Nico wasn’t around lately and Kyrie wondered if she was being overloaded with new contract work since the weapons convention.

Kyrie chose to peek in the garage, the van was still parked in place and the workshop was messy as ever. Nico snored loudly from sleeping inside the van with various empty cans of energy drinks scattered around the garage. Perhaps, it was okay to let her be. She’ll have to check Nico in the morning. Kyrie quietly closed the garage door as she left, reminding herself about the doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning. She was nervous and giddy about the sonogram, a first real chance to see their baby before they arrived.

\--

“Damn it.” Carina said to herself.

The last thing she knew, she was sleeping on the bathroom floor and now she was somewhere dark. She was wracking her memories over why the room looked familiar to her, a small window out of reach was the only source of light in the room. She tried to jiggle the knob on the heavy steel door before recoiling in disgust. The door was heavily scarred with fingernails made from something otherworldly. Dried blood marred some of the gouging and Carina pulled her hands to her face.

Nails, some broken and others missing. She shuddered, trying to steady herself. This was a faint memory that she didn’t need. Not right now. A faint, wispy voice floated through the air, capturing her immediate attention. It didn’t seem to belong to anyone she recognized before the voice finally reunited with a strange looking female. At least, strange was the only word that came to Carina’s mind.

She was so sure the female before her was projecting an illusion of a fae. “I’m pretty sure there aren’t fairies in this world of humans and demons, so you’re a demon.”

“A pity. I had hoped to spare your feeble human mind.”

“My brain is just fine.” Carina snorted.

“I had hoped to find out what it is about you that our king finds so fascinating.”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“I would love to personally get my hands on him, but alas, he chose the human world over ours. What a disgusting place.” The demoness scowled, her facade peeling away to what seemed to be a curious mimash of a woman’s torso merged with spider’s body with the legs descending into single point to form a crude looking cage.

Carina wasn’t impressed. “That supposed to intimidate me? Really?”

“He has his pick of anything in the world! Oh, we threw ourselves at him, trying to incite him at every turn.” The demoness exclaimed at Carina’s disgust. “Humans are nothing but trouble. Why, look at yourself. You were trapped in this place and you couldn’t even escape, much less protect your own child. Someone like you could never be his equal.”

“Maybe you’re right. So what? So what if I’m a human and unequal to him. Like, water is wet. Tell me something I don’t know, demon. Do me a favor, shut up and get lost.” 

“Perhaps, he did tire of you the first time around when he left. He may have found someone else more suitable. Are you certain that you aren’t the only one to bear his mark?”

At that, Carina suddenly burst out into laughter, making the demoness’ face freeze in sheer confusion. Why wasn’t her plan to rattle the human working at all?

“You’re fucking kidding me. This is the man who I had to physically drag his ass into my cottage to make sure he ate and got some bloody rest! He recoiled at being touched and I had to fight him to get the damn cloak off just so I could wash it like a proper hostess. Fuck off with that nonsense.” Carina made a tch sound, turning her back on the demoness. “You’re not even worth my time with this cosmic bullshit.”

“It’s a possibility you cannot deny because you have produced a weak child and you will continue to produce more weak children. He will want someone better.”

Carina’s jaw tensed as she spun around, the giant blue arms activating with her temper flaring up. The arms were aimed straight at the demoness’ face, landing a solid hit which shattered the nightmare into reality. She gaped, realizing that she was now kneeling on the couch, her arm still outstretched from the punch that unfortunately connected with her husband’s jaw.

Vergil was crumpled against the back wall, sliding out of a tidy upside body outline. “And this is why I didn’t want to wake you up.” He said, rubbing his jaw before recomposing himself.

“Holy shit. I’m so sorry, Vergil! I had a bad dream. I-I-I was back in that room.”

Once the memory flashed back to her, she started hyperventilating which prompted him to arrive at her side, trying to stay out of the way of the extra arms lest he get nailed by them again. Now he knew how Dante felt when Nero bitchslapped him the first time around. He pulled her into his arms, cradling her in silence and stroking her head.

“Shh. That memory is gone. You’re here with me.”

Carina’s breathing started to steady again, tears still in her eyes. “Fuck. If that demon was real, I want to rip their limbs off and beat them to death with the said limbs!”

“I believe you could.” Vergil said dryly, mid-stroke. “After all, you’re a human beast.”

“What?”

“Ignore that. That was an idle thought.”

“No, seriously.”

“If only because your strength is difficult to put in words. I have always wondered how after all these years you were able to drag me around when I weighed more than yourself despite being half dead from starvation and exhaustion.”

“I’m very stubborn…?” Carina couldn’t think of why either, herself. “Wait. Why do I have these extra limbs?”

“We could always ask Sam about it later. You hit me with that, by the way.” Vergil sighed.

Carina sighed, burying her face into his chest. “I said I’m sorry… that demon woman pissed me off so much, saying that I can only produce weak children and that you would rather want someone else better.”

“I have half a mind myself to find the demon themselves and remove everything but their head and make them spend their remaining days in that manner. However, on that same topic of children. Carina, why so many test sticks?”

She slumped. “I guess I didn’t expect it to happen again right away so I completely missed all the signs. I got carried away with buying every single brand available just to make sure. Didn’t know if I should go to a doctor either considering that wasn’t originally an option with Nero.

“I’m not so sure that’s necessary right now because you smell the same as the time I left. I didn’t understand why, but I believe I do now. It’s that little change in your body chemistry when you’re with a child.”

“About that.” She pulled away, her yellow eyes downcast. “When you left, it wasn’t a good time for me. I should have told you sooner but I was afraid history would repeat. You’d vanish again and I’d … no. This is stupid! The Order doesn’t even exist anymore!”

“It’s okay. I promise I won’t go anywhere.” He said, sliding his hands into hers, squeezing them. “If it makes you feel any better, we can send Dante to harass the demon and allow him to humiliate them in his style. That’ll make them think twice of ever annoying us.”

Carina let out a genuine laughter. “You sure you don’t want to beat them up yourself?”

“No, you’re vulnerable and it is my fault for having caused that in the first place. I solemnly swear to be at your side at all times even if it ends up irritating you.”

Vergil smiled back at her, one of those rare moments in her recent memory. He slid his hand under her chin, tipping her head back as he went in for a kiss when there was a loud crash, startling both of them. They took their time to lean over the back of the couch as he let out a long suffering sigh. Carina glanced back at her husband with a clear WTF look on her face.

That was no mouse, that was a small golem with a single eyeball. The golem lifted its tiny hand and waved at them, standing in front of a mouse sized hole which had large cracks radiating from the hole.

“...and this is Nightmare. Who I may feel the need to point out is much smaller than his original size. Or the other size.”

“Vergil. Why.”

\--

Sam the Researcher was quietly organizing the remains of the Order’s research papers in a storage unit. They had started a storage business during the clean-up and offered six months free rental with the option of time extension provided that the owners still needed more time to clean up for whatever reason. It allowed them to be able to control what research was left on all supernatural matters. The incident with unexpected Mundus runes in a room had convinced both Sam and Nero that it was too dangerous to let things be.

Sam frowned as they opened the box that belonged to their former boss who had long since disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Translating the notes from what they could remember of Agatha’s secret codes, Sam groaned quietly to themselves. It was Carina’s research and the information contained within was extremely unsettling if it wasn’t for a footnote Sam nearly missed due to speed reading. They blinked and flipped to a new page of hastily scribbled notes.

“Potential magical abilities? What the heck? Experiment abandoned due to unpredictability. Subject was dropped off mainland with no memories. Will attempt to retrieve the subject at a later date once more research is done on her background. Suspect biological father largely responsible for magical abilities because the subject keeps setting the control room on fire out of rage before having to gas her?”

Sam blinked for several moments and pulled out what seemed to be a rough assumption of a family tree chart as scribbled up by Agatha with even more notes. Their mouth dropped open in disbelief. Then they glanced at the rest of the notes.

_Interesting coincidence regarding the subject’s relation to one of my peons. That might be digressing a little bit as the peon in question might be the way they are because of their unique biological structure and their immunity to various experiments. Do have to wonder if this is the same thing in the subject…? Magical ability feeding into the chimera nature, making it stronger?_

“I really hate Agatha with the fury of a thousand suns.” Sam slumped over. “Didn’t even realize about the kinship either. Damn it, this just makes things worse.”

They returned the notes to the box, setting it aside for further investigation for they needed to get back to inventorying the rest of the research documents. What Mundus research was left was given to Dante because Dante felt like he needed to keep it with him just in case the “old geezer” decided to show up again. Sam had no issues with that. Vergil was more than glad to destroy everything relating to Bianco Angelo research, citing PTSD. Then there was a curious sheet that seemed as if it should have been in Sam’s pile of Sparda research, a recipe for a cheese wheel using hell cow milk.

“There were too many people researching different things at once.” Sam remarked sourly.

They shifted a box containing books on Umbra Witches and Lumen Sages on top of another box. Whoever the researcher was working on those, they quit long before Fortuna exploded from Santcus’ stupid mess. Such was the nature with research, so many projects started, some abandoned due to financing, subject too testy and setting things on fire, the researcher lost motivation themselves, getting kidnapped by evil bosses, or Angus just being there was enough.

\--

“Ah, freedom!” Dante stretched his arms out, flopping back on the couch.

Patty finally left once she was satisfied that the books looked kosher and reminded Dante to check his unread messages before leaving, locking the doors behind herself. He did appreciate her help but was it necessary to interrupt the movie night?

“Think we should be good to resume the movie?” Lady asked, snuggling up next to him.

“Sure, why not? I don’t think we’ll get any more interruptions.”

The phone rang.

“So much for that.”

“Stay there, I’ll be back.” Dante got off the couch to haul his ass to the desk to grab the phone. “Devil May Cry, this is Dante.”

“Brother.”

“Hello, Vergil.”

“I…”

Dante was still holding the phone to his head, expecting more out of his older brother. “You what?”

“I think we’re having a litter.”

“Is Shadow even old enough for kittens? Hell, is she even fixed at this point? Wait, how do you even spay a demon cat?”

Lady rolled her eyes at Dante. “I’m sure there’s some kind of demon vet out there.”

“Now that’s an interesting idea.” He shot across the room then back to the phone. “You’ve gone quiet, brother.”

“Probably because Carina is giving me a look. In any case, uh.”

“Congrats, bro. I mean that. You know, you’re going to have to pick up some books.”

“...are bookstores open at this time of the night?”

“G’night, Vergil.”


End file.
